5457/Changeling: Back to the Beginning

Changeling: Back to the Beginning
Date of Scene:	28 September 2018
Location:	New York City
Synopsis:	After the debriefing, Clint and Skye talk about who's going to kill Skye's dad.
Cast of Characters:	Hawkeye (Barton), Quake
Tinyplot:	Changeling

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Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
After the debriefing Clint dutifully went to medical to let them finish their check up. He stopped by the cafeteria first to bring them coffee, though while he usually enjoyed random acts of bribery, this time, he wasn't his usual smiling self. All the same he got out of medical with a bottle of pain killers and instructions to drink plenty of fluids and get some bed rest.

Oh, and he was off active duty for a couple of days and they'd do a brain scan tomorrow.

Nothing too bad.

Once that's done, he heads to their old quarters in the Trisk.

"Dropped our bags and a sixer of the frou-frou beer before the debriefing. That's what they meant by fluids right?" he asks Skye giving her a gentle hip check as he does.

Quake has posed:
It's not their couch.

Sure, it's a couch, but it's not their couch. It's neither purple, nor is it the one that Clint broke the arm off of that SHIELD 'suggested' they take with them when they left.

Still, that's where Skye sits, waiting for Clint until he returns from his appointment. Of note: she's not even got her laptop open.

"I hate it here," she says when he joins her. "And no, that's not what they mean, but I'm not sure it's real beer anyway, so go for it."

She looks around the place like it's foreign to her. And in some ways, it is. The last time she'd lived here, she'd had no concept of what it might mean to have a home. A life. A place where friends gathered and laughed and created memories and where she longed to go to at the end of the day. Prior to their place in the Village, anywhere Skye plunked her butt was home. That's how it was when you were a system kid.

She'd learned otherwise since then.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint stands in the doorway, looking around. He'd felt it too, the wrongness of the place, it wasn't home any more, home was their place in Village, the place they couldn't get back to, not until some problems were dealt with.

He shuts the door to the apartment after stepping inside.

"I wouldn't say I hate it here, but, yeah, it's not home," he admits as he ducks into the kitchen.

He opens the fridge, looks at the beer, but ultimately closes the fridge again to get a glass of water from the fridge. "Want anything?" he calls as he does.

Whether she wants something or not, when he returns setting things down on the coffee table and putting his arm around Skye's shoulders.

"I do hate we got chased out of our home though," he admits. "But I promise we're going to win it back, we're going to hunt down all the people after us and we're going to win it back."

Quake has posed:
"Fine, I don't /hate/ it," Skye grudgingly admits. "It's just not home. I never cared before, and then we made a home."

When he's in the kitchen she asks for a beer.

"What's ironic about all this? All my life, all I wanted was to know. To know who I was, and what I was, and who my parents were. And now that I know? All I can think is I want him gone. I wish I'd never found out. All of this is my fault."

A very miserable looking Skye nestles into Clint's embrace.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint does grab Skye a beer, grumbling to himself slightly as he does. He's good though, he sticks with water.

When Skye nestles against him, Clint pulls Skye closer. There's a frown though.

"Keyboard, why is it your fault? You didn't ask for a crazy ass dad with super powers," he kisses the top of her head. "I know I don't blame you for any of this, we don't get to pick our parents."

God did he know that, his dad was a monster in his own way too, just without the superpowers and a much lower body count.

Quake has posed:
"I don't know?" Skye says weakly, taking her beer, holding it in one hand, realizing that it might be unkind to drink it while Clint can't (or at least shouldn't).

"I just feel like maybe if I hadn't wanted it so much. Or maybe if I'd never stayed here. Or.. I don't know, okay? But he's my crazy-assed dad, and he's going to kill people. Maybe I should just go to him and give myself up. Make all this go away."

She's also pondering the very real option of escape and running away to reach the same end.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
"You can drink it," Clint assures her. "I won't mind." He leans forward and grabs his water from the table and has a sip.

It's no beer.

Setting the glass down again he shifts so he's more or less looking at Skye. "I know that kind of thinking, I think they issue it with your change of sheets at orphanage. End of the day though, Skye, your dad made his own choices, and you wanting to find him or not didn't make him crazy and what he does and doesn't do isn't on you."

He knew he'd feel the way Skye did though. Someone was out killing to get to her, and it was an easy leap to make those deaths her fault. It wasn't a leap he'd made, but he could see skewed logic behind it.

"Wouldn't know for sure if that'd stop him killing, if what you said about the crystals were right he'd just turn you into something like him and we'd be worse off."

His expression softens, "And we wouldn't have each other. I think if anyone's finding your dad, it should be to take him in or put him down."

He knew May's preference there, and he'd shared it until his name came up as the one to do the deed. Now, he was ambivelent. The guy needed to be dealt with, but if he did it...

"You heard what May said, right?"

Quake has posed:
Skye nods, lips settled over a moue of uncertainty.

"I know it's not my fault. And he'll jsut keep coming, but what if I just left? Went where he can't find me?"

She knows it means she wouldn't have Clint, but then again, she wouldn't be putting everyone in danger. And.. And Clint would be miserable, until May smacked him off the back of the head and the pair went looking for her. The trio, if May dragged Nat into the matter. And Skye herself had fed May exactly how to bypass SHIELD to find her, via the Birds and Oracle..

"He won't stop," Skye repeats quietly. "He won't stop until he's dead."

She looks up, and over to Clint, "Take the shot, Hotshot," she whispers. "I'd only miss." Her words an uneven echo of his back on the docks. "It has to be done. And it has to be someone who'll finish it with one shot."

Becacuse an injured Cal would be a rampaging carnage wherever he happened to be.

More, though, as much as she knew it needed to be done, Skye needed it to be done as peacefully and painlessly as possible. Regardless of whatever else he was, Cal Johnson was still her father.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint hugs Skye close. "Aw Keyboard," he kisses the top of her head.

"Hell I'd run with you if I thought it would help, but you know he's going to just keep coming until he's stopped or..."

He let's that trail off. It was something of an irony that SHIELD's best sniper hated killing. It'd almost took him out of the agency more than once. He loosens his grip on Skye when she urges him to take the shot. Not out of disgust but so he could look her in the eyes as she said it.

Clint let out a sigh. He was the man who could do it in one shot, an arrow to the brain stem and it'd be over before Cal could blink. It was his 'Banner shot' the way he devised to take out the Hulk before he could change. If it ever came to that.

This was worse though. He felt his stomach tie in knots.

"And you'd be able to love me after that?" he asks. "Me being the guy who killed your father?"

There was no point in beating around the bush.

Quake has posed:
Skye sets down her beer, and holds her hands out to Clint, and when she's holding them within her own, holds his gaze steady within the brown of her own.

"I wanted parents I could love. Not parents who are monsters." All the while thinking: how can he love me? I'm a monster too. "I'm asking you to because there isn't anyone else I trust with this. Make it merciful, Clint. I want us all to be able to go on and live our lives without him haunting us. Please? I can't. I'm just not good enough."

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint takes Skye's hands in his own, rubbing the back of them with his thumbs before lifting his blue eyes to meet her gaze.

He didn't see a monster. He saw Skye.

He nods about her parents. He'd wanted better for her too. Wished they'd just stayed in the picture, an ideal, an enigma, with none of the pain born of the truth. He wanted that for her, but all he could give her was this.

His eyes slip closed for a moment, anquish registering on his face, then his eyes open again and seek out hers. "If anyone else was asking I'd tell them to pound sand," he lets out a breath. "But for you Keyboard, I'll do it. Just don't hate me for it, please. I couldn't stand it."

Not that she could control that. It was all well and good to ask someone to ask someone to kill someone and say it wouldn't change anything, but after it was done, he'd always and forever be the man who killed her father.

Quake has posed:
Skye gives a crooked little smile. "I don't know what else to do, Hotshot. I keep trying to come up with a better answer, and I don't know what else to do."

But she understands. She truly does. "Nat would do it. We could ask her."

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint leans in and kisses that crooked smile. "I know," he says softly. "I keep trying to find something better too. I mean we can lock him up, but from what I've seen he's going to keep trying to break out."

Not that most supervillains didn't do the same, but they, for the most part, weren't coming for them.

The suggestion of asking Nat, has Clint making a face. Stupid brain. He didn't want to be the man who killed her father but at the same time he didn't want to dodge the task that Skye had entrusted to him. In the end, he took the easy way out.

"We can ask her," he says. "I just didn't want you to regret your choice and be sick just looking at me because of it."

Quake has posed:
Skye just looks lost and helpless.

"I don't have any other answers. And he'll just break out. He walks through walls. I don't know. Nat's pissed about all of this. If she'd ever forgiven me, I don't think she will again. But she'd probably happily kill him."

Skye sighs, and shakes her head. "I just want this over."

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint's heart breaks looking at her.

"Yeah," he agrees softly, helplessly, as he draws her into his arms. There was a lack of options.

As for Nat. His partner could be closed off when she wanted to be. Hard to read. She was definitely unhappy when she was on the quinjet but he wasn't in a state to guess her feelings. His head had been banging like a drum.

"I could ask her," he offers about the anger.

"So do I, Keyboard," he says his hand on her back pressing ~I love you~ into it. "We'll get this done and take our life back."