The Park, Wednesday Evening

[so_hawkward]

Clint had been keeping himself busy since doing the radio broadcast this morning, because he was a good, responsible person, not because he had things to avoid thinking about. After all, Kitty had only nearly died the last time she'd stepped back into the superhero life, and this time she knew what she was going up against so surprises wouldn't be an issue and... yeah, Lucky was getting an extra-long walk tonight as Clint checked the reception on his phone.

"Hey, no whining," Clint said as they circled the park again. "Do you have any idea how many calories are in pizza? This is good for you."

[Open!]

Comments

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

Oh, what a coincidence; after rehearsal for The Consequence of Being Frank, April and Cliff happened to be out on a walk tonight as well. Which naturally meant that Lucky was being inspected by a three-legged pitbull as they approached, because canine socializing on this island was hard to come by, okay.

April, for her part, just gave Clint a nod of greeting. "'Sup."

[so_hawkward]

"'Sup," Clint said with a nod of his own, as Lucky approached Cliff. "No butt sniffing, be polite."

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Aw, you'll break his heart." No, not really. As if breaking very sad news to a very disappointed person, April clucked, "Sorry, Cliff. Them's the rules."

[so_hawkward]

Clint snickered, and smiled softly at April. "How's it going?"

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

April shrugged. "Wednesday." That was totally an answer to 'how's it going,' right? "You?"

[so_hawkward]

"Doing okay. It's...definitely a Wednesday," he said with a shrug. "Did you have an interesting weekend?"

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"No dead people," April offered with a shrug. "Kind of 'less is more,' interesting-wise."

Or enjoyment-wise, at least. "How're you doing?"

[so_hawkward]

"Not so bad. I didn't get anyone this weekend," Clint said. "Kitty's out of town, so things are very boring." Yeah, boring was totally the word.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

Never having been in a relationship that could fairly be termed 'interesting,' April had to ask, "Does she normally, like, juggle for you or start fires or something?"

[so_hawkward]

Clint laughed, shaking his head. "She's just fun to be around, in my completely unbiased opinion."

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Well, you're in luck, 'cause so're plenty of other people," April said, assuming a jocular tone that was different enough from her normal monotone to indicate that she was teasing. "Perk barista's a pretty swell guy. I'd start there if you're looking to be interested. Ask him about his pet gerbil."

[so_hawkward]

"Do I want to know what he does with the gerbil?" Clint had some ideas and none of them were nice.

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"Makes masturbation puns, as far as I can tell," April said. Then she re-adopted her usual voice to deadpan, "Like I said, he's super fascinating."

[so_hawkward]

"I don't know, you seem a lot more fascinating. But all dog people are," Clint said. "We're just automatically better."

[hatesmoststuff.livejournal.com]

"That's true," April confirmed, one corner of her mouth twitching as if she was stifling a grin. "But I feel compelled to point out your girlfriend's name is Kitty."

[so_hawkward]

"Well, she's special," Clint said with a possibly pathetic smile. "She's the exception to my rule."

[throughaphase]

Once everyone had gotten back and they'd been able to reassure Rachel that it was safe to leave the closet (seriously what was her life), Kitty had waited just long enough to make sure she was okay before getting her phone.

And heading outside to the beach for this call because wow was the house crowded now.

Ring, ring, Clint.

[so_hawkward]

Clint only needed to hear the first few notes of his ringtone for Kitty before he was answering. "Hello?"

[throughaphase]

"Heya, handsome," Kitty greeted him, smiling. Don't think she didn't notice how fast he picked up.

[so_hawkward]

Hey, maybe he was just good at phones! "Hello to you too." If he sounded relieved, well, there was really no reason to hide it. "How are you doing?"

[throughaphase]

"Bad guy's gone and Rachel's back!" she said happily, like that explained everything. "I'm good. How are you?"

[so_hawkward]

"Fine. You're not missing anything exciting here," Clint said calmly. "I take it we like Rachel?"

[throughaphase]

"We like Rachel a lot," Kitty said. "She's one of my best friends. She had to go back to her own universe a couple years ago and I didn't think we'd ever hear from her again. Turns out she was the telepath Bogan- the bad guy- was making work for him."

After the last week, she was kind of thrilled to actually get someone back instead of losing them.

[so_hawkward]

"So you got your friend back and took out the bad guy? And you're okay?" That was really the important part. "Everything turned out right?"

[throughaphase]

"Yes, yes and yes," Kitty assured him. "I wanted to call earlier, but... it's been an extremely weird 24 hours."

[so_hawkward]

"Hey, it's okay, it sounds like you've had better things to worry about than calling," Clint said easily. "I'm just glad you're okay."

[throughaphase]

"Nothing worse than a few bruises. And the only reason I didn't was because Rachel locked us in a pocket dimension in a closet because she thought Bogan was coming after us." Yes, she knew that was not a normal thing. "I didn't want to keep you worrying."

[so_hawkward]

"I wasn't too worried. I knew you'd be okay," Clint lied like a lying thing. "Although I wasn't expecting a pocket dimension to be involved."

[throughaphase]

"Yeah, neither was I. I also got to ride molten lava and hung out in an astral plane in a... gem thing." She still had no idea how to describe that, no. "I'm used to some abnormality as my normal, but wow."

[so_hawkward]

"And you're sure you're all right? Molten lava doesn't sound conducive to you not being injured," Clint pointed out.

[throughaphase]

"Positive," Kitty said, trying not to smile at how many times he'd asked a variation of that so far. "One of the girls here, her power's manipulating that stuff. It was freaky, but I'm fine. And soon enough you'll get to check me out for yourself."

[so_hawkward]

"Ooh, I like the sound of 'soon enough,'" Clint said. "I guess it's a good thing you went to help out."

[throughaphase]

"Yeah. The plan wouldn't really be able to work without me," she said, finding a spot to sit for a while. "As long as they don't start using that as a reason to keep getting me to do this stuff."

[so_hawkward]

"Well, it might not be so bad to help out every once in a while, right? If you can stay safe like you did this time?" Clint said optimistically.

[throughaphase]

"We'll see," she said vaguely. "I just worry that if they make a habit of calling me in, it'll turn into something permanent. And I still don't exactly agree with their official stance here. I guess I'll take it on a case by case basis and make with the yelling if I start feeling abused."

[so_hawkward]

"You can blame me if you want." It wasn't like he had a reputation to uphold or anything. "Say I'm holding you hostage. Naked. Or something."

[throughaphase]

Kitty had to laugh at that. "Oh, god, I don't even know what kind of reaction that'd get from my guys here," she said. "I don't know if they'd threaten to beat you up or just go with it."

[so_hawkward]

"Neither of those options sound bad to me if they keep you here," Clint said. "But maybe that's me being selfish."

[throughaphase]

"I much rather the option that keeps you unbeaten." Because she worried about him, too. "What if we just say I'm sick and can't superhero that day?"

[so_hawkward]

Clint laughed. "Sorry, Kitty has the flu and can't come out to play today. You'll have to come back later."

[throughaphase]

"That's very convincing. I'd buy it," she grinned. "See, we'll keep that on standby for the next crisis."

She'd totally go help in the next crisis.

[so_hawkward]

She was totally going to end up helping in the next crisis, but at least Clint could say he'd tried. "So, you're coming back soon?" he asked. "Before you can get into more trouble?"

[throughaphase]

"Friday," Kitty confirmed. "Just to get Rachel settled in a little, and I don't want to impose on Rogue too much. Plus I kind of booked myself into having a party Saturday, so. And you're all the way across the country in another universe and I want to fix that."

[so_hawkward]

"Yeah, that is going to require you to come back and find me," Clint said. "Unless I need to entice you to return somehow."

[throughaphase]

"...I kinda want to know how you'd entice me," Kitty laughed.