The Park, Tuesday Afternoon

[so_hawkward]

When Clint had woken up in the morning, he'd felt warm, comfortable, and safe, and that was more than a little weird. He'd allowed himself to wallow in bed for a few extra minutes before getting up and sneaking out before whoever owned the house came back.

Okay, so he'd raided the fridge and then snuck out. But really, he might not have been bright, but he wasn't completely stupid.

Now, he was sitting on a bench in the park, trying to figure out how to work the little machine he'd found in his coat pocket. So far, he'd figured out that he'd had it long enough to put his name on it, and that this Angry Birds thing was super addictive.

[Open!]

Comments

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie was just walking through the park with a takeaway hot chocolate in hand. She almost walked straight past Clint – there were random teenagers all around and she really didn't care – but something made her look again.

And then stop, and just barely raise an eyebrow.

"This must be some kind of a Fandom thing."

[so_hawkward]

Clint hesitated a moment before looking up - he had his bird in just the right spot for ultimate pig carnage - and gave the nice-looking girl a smile. "What's a Fandom thing?" he asked.

[whenshewasnice]

"The kind of thing where you don't know who I am and have to ask me that," Natalie replied in perfect deadpan. "Clint, right?"

He didn't have the right hair to be the other one.

[so_hawkward]

Clint's eyes narrowed in an instant when she said his name, and he shifted on the bench uncomfortably. "Maybe. What's your name?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Natalie," she said, like she hadn't noticed his reaction. Except that her tone seemed to have softened just a little bit. "Not a threat."

And there was that.

[so_hawkward]

Well, it wasn't like people who were threats announced themselves as such, but Clint still relaxed a little. "Yeah, it's Clint," he said, like that wasn't already obvious. "You wanna sit down?"

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie thought she'd been nice by at least leaving out the addendum about how she could probably still break his face.

"Sure," she nodded, moving to take a seat next to him, warming both hands around her takeaway cup. "Nice to meet you, Clint. In a manner of speaking."

[so_hawkward]

"In a manner of speaking? Oh, because we've met before, right," he said in realization. "I'm sorry I don't remember that." Maybe he'd gotten hit in the head or something. That did tend to happen a lot for some reason.

[whenshewasnice]

"It's fine, these things happen." No, really, they did. It was the island's thing! "It'll come back to you eventually, and it's not that important."

About half a lie. Maybe two thirds.

[so_hawkward]

"I don't know, I'd be kind of pissed if I met somebody and they didn't remember me." Hey, that was half a lie too. "At least I made a good impression, since you're not punching me or anything."

[nottrivial]

Okay, terribly sorry, Clint, but Alec had met you a few times now and, not being acquainted with your usual doppelganger or the Fandom custom of even having such things, he was just going to assume that nothing was out of the ordinary apart from a truly terrible hair-related choice. It took a little effort to stifle the instinctive snicker, to be honest.

"...Hello."

[so_hawkward]

Yeah, Clint was not going to be happy about the hair when he was himself again, but for now he thought he looked awesome, thank you very much. "Hey," he said, looking up for a moment before adding, "Is this your spot?" People didn't usually just say hello to him, after all.

[nottrivial]

"No..." Okay, that was a weird thing to say. "Sorry, it's Clint, right?"

[so_hawkward]

"Yeah, I'm Clint," he said after a moment. It was really weird to have people know his name, but lying didn't seem like it would get him anywhere. "Have we met?"

[nottrivial]

Well, yes, but Alec figured explaining it like that would only lead to more confusion. "I guess not," he said, shaking his head. He looked at Clint a little more carefully now, trying to figure out what the likely variation of Fandom weird they were dealing with was. "Do you know where you are?"

[so_hawkward]

"Of course," Clint said, with all the false bravado his teenage self could muster. "We're on an island, duh."

[nottrivial]

Alec nodded. "It's called Fandom," he shared. "People sometimes wake up here without knowing what they're doing here, so I thought I'd check."

That was a helpful thing to say, right? Not at all creepy?

"I'm Alec."

[so_hawkward]

"Oh. Well, uh, hi," Clint said awkwardly, sneaking glances at Alec as he looked back at his game of Angry Birds like he totally knew what this thing he was playing with was. "That sounds like a weird problem for people to have."

[nottrivial]

"It is," Alec agreed. "It hasn't happened to me yet, fortunately. I mean, for me."

He was such a sweetheart.

"If you need help finding your way around, I can help," he added. "I'm usually pretty okay at that."

The key words being "pretty," "okay," and "usually." THERE WAS SO MUCH SELF-ESTEEM IN THIS PARK RIGHT NOW.

[imablackwidowbaby]

Natasha was mid-brainwashing program as a teenager so this is safer for everyone, really out scouting for a walk and wondering where her roommate had gotten to when she spied someone with extremely familiar bone structure sitting on a park bench.

That hot redhead over there will just be sneakily taking a picture of you and sending it to SHIELD with 'Does Barton have living relatives please reply ASAP' encrypted and attached, Clint.

[so_hawkward]

Clint might not have had any stealthy skills yet, but he was pretty good at spotting hot women, and he tried to sneak glances at Natasha between sending birds flying in his game. It was possible his looking was pretty obvious, even with all that hair in the way.

[imablackwidowbaby]

Don't try to sneak looks at a spy, teeny Clint. It's just silly. Natasha took one last look at her phone--no reply from SHIELD, how typical--and sighed in annoyance before looking up at Clint and switching into 'friendly adult' mode. "Hi," she said with a warm smile. "I'm Natasha."

[so_hawkward]

"Hi Natasha, it's nice to meet you," Clint said, not staring at her chest through some miracle of self-preservation. "I'm Clint. Your phone looks pretty cool." And it was probably really hers, so that was worth some bonus points too.

[imablackwidowbaby]

"...Clint," Natasha repeated, but she was thinking several Russian swear words. "Hello." That also explained why he had Clint's phone. "What are you doing?"

[so_hawkward]

"I found a game on this thing called Angry Birds. I mean, I have this game." Because the phone was totally his, for real. "Have you ever played? It's kind of violent but in a cute way."