Atlas Gym, Thursday

[so_hawkward]

Usually, when Clint needed to wind down, he spent some personal time with his bow, but he'd said he'd be at the gym today, so instead, the punching bag was getting the brunt of his frustrations. He should have been in a good mood after finding out that Coulson was alive, but he couldn't stop thinking about all the other people who'd died on the Helicarrier who weren't alive, and everyone had told him that what happened to Coulson wasn't his fault, even people who didn't understand what had happened and could never understand what had happened, but it was his fault there was an attack at all and it was his fault that Loki had been on board and now it turned out there was a Loki here but he was good and young and Clint couldn't just shoot him in the face, and really, this poor punching bag did not deserve what it was getting, but Clint was in a zone now and probably wouldn't be stopping without some other distraction.

[Open!]

Comments

[throughaphase]

It was mostly the noise that drew Kitty here on her way to get some practice in- someone hitting a bag tended to be a pretty distinctive noise.

"Did it give you lip?" she asked... from a nice safe distance.

[so_hawkward]

Clint stopped for a moment, putting his hands on the bag to steady it and catch his breath. When he saw it was Kitty who had come in, he put on a smile. "Oh yeah, it was terrible. I'm wounded," he said. "But I think it's learning its lesson. How's it going?"

[throughaphase]

A smile was a good sign when someone was killing a punching bag like that. "You know, same old, same old," she said. "How are you?"

[so_hawkward]

"Not so bad," Clint said nonchalantly, and he tried to make his punches a little lighter this time around. "This place is kind of messed up, you know that?"

[throughaphase]

"It really, really is," Kitty agreed, folding her arms. "So did you turn into something, or run into someone weird?"

[so_hawkward]

"Someones," Clint says, holding up two fingers. "You'd think the island would be a lot less friendly with so many New Yorkers around, but I guess not."

[throughaphase]

"You'd think," she said sympathetically. "Uh. Can I ask who?"

Because the odds were pretty good she knew them too.

[so_hawkward]

Clint had to think about it for a moment, but there were only so many secrets that could be kept from the people here. "A guy named Phil Coulson. He's working at the weapons store. He was my handler for a long time," he said. "And one of the students, Loki."

Oh, that poor punching bag.

[throughaphase]

"The kid on radio? I wondered about that, but decided I really didn't want to ask," Kitty admitted. "The other one I don't know."

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Does it owe you money?" Hello to you too, Tony.

[so_hawkward]

"I'm trying to see if it's full of candy," Clint replied. A teenaged version of someone else he knew was exactly what he needed right now.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Deal with it, Hawkass. Deal with it.

"Pretty sure that's pinatas, but keep telling people that. Might make the work harder at punching things."

Because it totally would have worked with him.

[so_hawkward]

"What, you don't think I come across as believable?" Clint asked, managing a smile as he let his head rest against the bag. "What brings you by?"

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Checking to see if you remodeled the place. It's been a while since I was in here."

[so_hawkward]

"Nah, it was in pretty good shape when we got here, so we left things pretty much the same. Didn't seem like much of a point in confusing the locals," Clint said with a shrug. "You don't seem like the gym type."

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"What, these guns not obvious enough?" Tony asked, flexing an arm.

[so_hawkward]

The snorting noise Clint made was probably undignified, but come on. "Oh no, you'd better put those away before you get into trouble," he said. "I guess you should probably build up some muscle for the future." The suit had to be kind of heavy, right?

[longislandiceme]

Apparently it was Clint's day for being harassed by people from different versions of his reality, because, oh, hey, a Bobby.

"Oh," he said, upon spotting Clint. "...You're not-" a cough. "I mean, have you seen Ms, um. Romano- off." Smooth, Bobby. Smooth. Although at least he managed to use 'Romanoff' and not 'Romanova'.

[so_hawkward]

Clint glanced over and leaned against the punching bag. "She's not here at the moment. Can I help you with something?" Probably not, since he didn't have Natasha's hotness, but he'd offer anyway.

[longislandiceme]

"I just wanted to see if she wanted to go a few rounds," he shrugged. "You know. Sparring and that." Yes, a teenager wanted to spar with the Black Widow. What could he say? Running in to her the other day had kind of made him nostalgic. He narrowed his eyes and gave Clint a closer look. He really looked familiar. "Bobby Drake," he introduced himself, holding out a hand.

[so_hawkward]

"Clint Barton," he said, unable to keep from laughing softly as he shook his hand. "You want to spar with Natasha? No offense, but that's probably not a good idea."

[longislandiceme]

Oh, he knew, Clint. He knew. And yet... since when had 'not a good idea' ever stopped Bobby Drake?

Pretty much never.

"Hah! I knew I recognized you from somewhere!" Bobby exclaimed, snapping his fingers as he pulled away from the handshake. "Please tell me someone's explained the whole alternate-worlds thing to you already?"

[so_hawkward]

Clint sighed, but this kid seemed pretty non-threatening. "Yeah, I've gotten that from all the other people who know me even though I don't know them," he said. "I don't wear purple, I'm just going to state that up front."

[longislandiceme]

Bobby snickered. "So noted. There are a lot of us, huh? I'd say we should start some sort of club, but..." he shrugged. Most of them kind of already belonged to one organization or another.

[so_hawkward]

"You easily bring it over half a dozen," Clint said. "We could start a club, but we'd have to leave some people out."