12957/Tony and Clint talk about heroics
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| Tony and Clint talk about heroics | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 04 April 2021 |
| Location: | Game Room, Avengers Mansion |
| Synopsis: | Tony and Clint chat |
| Cast of Characters: | Hawkeye (Barton), Iron Man
|
- Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
The Mansion is relatively quiet by mid-afternoon. Clint Barton came in for a medical exam - which in itself went relatively well since they let him go - all his wounds healing quickly. His left leg is still sore - not that he would ever admit it - but he manages to walk without a crutch or even a cane. Nonetheless, Hawkeye feels like taking a break before making his way home.
So now, Clint is playing solo pool on the large table in the Game room. Bored with the traditional game, he's now playing his own game, which consists on him throwing the balls directly in the holes. It seems that the archer also had a snack, a nearby coffee table being covered with all kinds of dirty plates. Noone expects the archer to eat where he's supposed to.
- Iron Man has posed:
The clatter of billiard balls banging on the slate top and back-boarding off the metal brackets that bound each hole draws attention. At the moment it's just Tony Stark wearing sneakers, ratty old blue jeans and a t-shirt which suggests that he was either at a 1990 Guns'N'Roses concert or else he wants people to think he was.
"Don't we have a basketball court?" he asks in that unreadable tone of his. You know the one - he might be snarky, humorous, or asking sincerely.
- Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint isn't surprised by Tony's appearance, hey, this is the Avengers Mansion, you're kind of expecting to meet some of them. Before answering Tony's question, Clint throws the last ball, which drops directly into the hole.
As if to match Tony's choice of clothes, Clint is wearing same very old jeans, running shoes and his trademark black t-shirt with a large purple target sign on the front.
As he turns to face Tony, a large grin appears on his face as he retorts, "Oh, you mean, the same court were you lot /lost/ so miserably to the X-Geeks cuz I wasn't there to save the day?"
- Iron Man has posed:
While Hawkeye ribs him about a game he admits he wasn't there to see, Stark pads across the floor in what are likely the most grotesquely expensive flip-flops on Earth. They look like the soles are made of real bamboo while the thong appears to be hand-woven plant fiber. Like every other flip-flops ever made, they noisily slap first the carpeted floor and then the sole of his foot as he goes.
The man starts reaching into the netted pockets to extract the billiard balls, giving the solid colors a gentle roll toward Hawkeye while keeping the stripes for himself. "You don't mind having little balls, right?" he asks casually. Before the other has much chance to process that: "How does scoring work in this game?"
- Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
The comment about /little balls/ isn't lost to the archer, but nonetheless, the grin remains on his face. He's not one to let sarcasm fall on him without reacting with his own. Gathering the /small balls/, Clint stands by his end of the table, nodding in the direction of the holes at the other end.
"Easy-peasy," the archer then explains, "You must throw your /big balls/, and score any hole in one." He pauses, then adds, "The catch? You can't use your overrated charm, armor, you can't even /pay/ them to let you get a hole in one, Mister /big balls/. I'll let you try first."
And on that, Clint takes a healthy distance from his end of the table, where Tony will throw his first pool ball and - most certainly - miss.
- Iron Man has posed:
"What about trigonometry, advanced physics accounting for quantum dissonance, and an IQ our species can't accurately measure?" Stark asks idly as he moves around to Hawkeye's end of the table with his armful of striped billiard balls. He spends long seconds carefully lining his balls up along one rail, then organizing them in ascending numeric order, before he picks one up. He hefts it in his hand, gives it a little toss in the air, then cocks his arm and does some practice extensions as if aiming carefully at a pocket.
When he finally lets it fly, Tony throws the pool ball at a far-corner hole as if he was trying to put a fast-ball past a batter. There's a loud, hollow BANG as the ball strikes the metal collar on the hole and bounds straight up. The ball is now embedded in the ceiling with its number facing straight down.
- Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint blinks at the ball hitting the metal collar, then bouncing up to the ceiling. "Shyte man," he grumbles, "Got some pent-up frustration there? Where did I say you had to destroy the table?"
That said, Clint moves to the edge of the table, picks whatever ball from his set, and aims carefully. When it comes to aiming and hitting a target, no one can compete.
"Ye're right there," he admits, "Most of our species being too busy taking care of their own, helping the poor, supporting the less lucky ones, trying to survive together... it's not really that we /can't/ measure such IQ, it's more that we don't give a shyte about it."
And on that, Clint expertedly throws a /small/ ball, which cleanly enters the hole without breaking anything around.
- Iron Man has posed:
Tony Stark gives Clint a sidewise glance while his hand slowly moves over his row of numerically-ordered striped balls to elect one out of the middle of the row. "Which members of our species are doing all these great things again? Oh, right," he's doing that toss-weight-test with the ball again. "It's all the rich guys, who grow up playing darts and have ski-ball machines in their bedroom."
This ball is given a fairly gentle underhanded toss, with a sharp flick of the wrist to put spin on it in flight. It kisses the ball in the ceiling with a SMACK and angles off sharply, ending up not in the corner pocket below but the one on the other side of the table. The one in the ceiling jostles a bit and plaster dust rains down on the green felt and the woodwork around the pocket. "That's called English," he points out, without specifying which part of the trick he means.
- Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Tony's trick is met with an approving nod from the archer. Not bad, not bad at all. Nice shot. For a moment, Clint looks down at his set of balls, finally picking not one, but two of them. This might be tricky with a still sore arm, but if anyone can do it, it's him.
Stepping back from the table a good two feet, he then aims, and in one fluid motion, throws the two balls simultaneously, both cleanly entering the far holes at the opposite end of the table. But the move was too much for his arm, still recovering and the pain momentarily shows on his face.
"Yeah, the same that grow up throwin' darts, while others have to beg for a meal. You don't have to remind me." And now the grin on Clint's face is gone, for what started as jest is turning into something the archer doesn't want to joke about. If Tony read his files, he would know that the topic might be hitting home with Hawkeye, who of all, wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
- Iron Man has posed:
"You okay?" Tony asks Clint, his face registering genuine concern. His eyes go from the pained look on the other man's face to the injured arm. "I heard you just got back from that thing..." he raises one hand and makes a flippant gesture of wiggling it in the air, "that mountain-rescue thing." While there's no doubt that Stark has read all the files SHIELD makes available, and all the files they try to hide, probably with daily if not hourly updates, he's suddenly gone from acutely aware of how much pain Hawkeye is in to not even sure how that happened.
- Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
"You win," Clint states as he makes his way, trying not to limp, to the nearest couch. Slowly sitting down, he then rests his legs on the coffee table, something he'd do naturally.
"I dunno," he starts, "Wait, I don't /want/ to know how you got the information about the Goats Mountain." He grins, remembering this mission way too well. "Naw... just the Hood. Again. They're trying to expel tenents from a poor neighbouring, and well, on my spare time, I fight them back. Got me a nice artery cut, busted arm, free gallons of blood and a debt." On that he pauses, sighing, "All on my day off. What about you? Got in any trouble lately, /acquired/ anything interestin'?"
- Iron Man has posed:
Tony Stark turns to keep facing Barton while the archer settles into a couch, so by the time his back is to the pool table he gives a little hop to sit on its edge. That's good for the balance and level of the game table, proven by the way his big balls, carefully lined up along one rail, clack and roll apart.
"I picked up a mild itch from a Pan-Am stewardess last weekend," he answers cheerily. "And I met a thirty foot tall alien robot who said that an androgynous elf told him it'd be cool to eat half a dozen supercars with limitless sentimental value. Which would you like to talk about?"
- Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Ah! That brought back a grin on the archer's face. Not that he really cares about Tony and his /itches/, good for him. But it's a nice change of topic. In all truth, the two men didn't find much of a common ground between them yet, with all their different views on everything.
"How come, not using your own private jet anymore?"
Then at the mention of the collectible cars, Clint can barely keep a straight face. After all, it is /he/ who suggested Blur could play vroom-vroom with the precious cars! "I'm sure if he played with your cars, Tony," he states, "It was to protect the rest of the Mansion from his boredoom induced antics." And it might have been the case, who knows?
- Iron Man has posed:
"I was particularly impressed by, 'suit-man,' and 'shell-head,'" Stark says, staring hard and straight at Barton. "Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I mean. Even weak imitation." He turns halfway around to snag a ball off the tabletop, then turns back and plays with it by idly tossing it from hand to hand across his lap. "Personally, I would go with, 'Megamind,' or, 'Shiny Santa Claus.'"
"But it's the thought that counts!"
- Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK. So Tony knows more about it than Clint expected - hoped indeed. Unphased, the archer offers what should look like the most innocent face he can provide."Again," he starts, "It was all to protect the compound, y'know?" Yes, and secretly, it was all about annoying Tony to the outmost and it seems to have worked just fine! After a pause, Clint adds.
"No, you would go with God, and nothing less."
- Iron Man has posed:
Tony Stark grins at Clint Barton and hops up off the edge of the pool table. "But can God give himself a nickname that even irritates *Him*?" he asks as he heads back the way he came. Those expensive flip-flops slap-slap-slap along the way.
"Oh," he mutters as he realizes he's still tossing that ball back and forth in front of him. Turning back, now a dozen feet from his original mark, he squints at the ball stuck in the ceiling. He gives that ball a couple of tosses, then sharply underhands it. The new one strikes the ceiling right next to the stuck one, buckling the drywall and letting both fall free. The one now-unstuck drops straight down into the pocket! The other drops, bounces high twice on the metal collar, and then THUNKS on the slate and lays there motionless. "Two in one isn't that hard, see?" the billionaire asks as he heads on out of the room, pretending he didn't notice that one of them missed.
"Get better, Clint. If you decide you'd rather rock some protective gear than spend half your life trying to figure out how to hit on nurses," he cocks his right hand nearby his head, thumb and pinky extended to simulate a phone handset, and gives the hand a little wiggle.