3402/Fish Don't Fry in the Kitchen

Fish Don't Fry in the Kitchen
Date of Scene:	16 December 2017
Location:	Suite A6 Skye and Clint - The Triskelion
Synopsis:	Clint wakes Skye with coffee and a serious talk about Lara's offer of a home in Greenwich Village. Skye surprises Clint with some signlanguage. The expected results.
Cast of Characters:	Hawkeye (Barton), Quake

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Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
It's morning, Clint is coming back from monitor duty at the mansion. He's dressed in his standard street clothing and he's got coffee and donuts with him. Coffee and donuts from out in the world not just the SHIELD cafeteria down the hall. "Hey, Skye, I'm back," he calls out as he nudges his way past the door and into the apartment.

The cups and the donut box read: Magnolia's Bakery. Greenwich Village.

Quake has posed:
Skye.. isn't out of bed yet. It's morning. That round glowy thing in the skye and she hhave an agreement: it doesn't bother her, and she doesn't bother it..

She'd stayed home the night before to tend to work. Much fun as it might be to accompany Clint, and much as really a lot of her work could be done elsewhere, there were a few things she'd wanted to double check, and some sims she wanted to run - all of which would work better if she stayed where the bulk of her tech (and SHIELD's) were.

Of course his cheery morning greeting wakes her. A muffled, "Nobody I know would be so cruel at this hour of the morning," coming from the bedroom. Hell, she'd done away with the birdsong and automatic sunrise just so she could sleep in when she wanted. Sometimes it paid to be a hacker.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Damn. Clint had lost the bet he'd made with himself on the way over. He figured she'd still be tapping away at the laptop and would need to he lured away with the promises of donuts or whatever else came to mind.

"I'm hurt, I'd thought you'd know me pretty well by now," he teases her as he kicks of his boots in the doorway and then heads to the couch, choosing the broken one over the purple one, because food.

"Though, I temper my cruelty with mercy, in this case coffee and donuts!" he calls back to her.

Quake has posed:
A non-committal grunt comes from the direction of the bedroom. "You're evil. And give me a minute." She wanders out from the bedroom, dressed only in tap shorts and a tank top, running a hand through the dishevelled mess of her hair. "Yeah, I crashed early. Hit a wall and decided I wasn't doing anyone, including me, any favours."

She yawns and curls up on the opposite end of the couch, tucking her toes down towards his end of the couch. The purple couch being longer, she doesn't actually manage to reach him. "I thought we had this discussion about me an mornings? Right before I hacked in and disabled the auto-sunrise and birdsong on the room?"

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint shifts over to let his leg reach Skye's feet instead of vice versa. He doesn't even say the short joke that comes to mind, he just thinks it very, very hard and grins. "How can I be evil? I brought coffee?" he asks handing her a cup, before he opens the box of donuts, there's six, various kinds. He ignores them for the moment in favour of coffee.

After a long sip, he says, "Honestly? I thought'd you still be up, so, if you want to crash out for a bit, we can breakfast in an hour or eight," he offers.

Quake has posed:
Clint gets a long look. She knows *exactly* what's flitting through his head. "Not evil? then what's with the short joke, huh?" Skye reaches for the offered cup, and peers at the donut offerings. "Honey cruller? If not, throw something my way."

Even as she says that, she knows that one might be trouble. He's just as liable to taker her literally on that as not.

Another yawn, and a sleepy scrub of fist at her eyes and Skye shakes her head. "Up now. I'll crash later, maybe. How'd monitor night go?"

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint smirks right back at that look. "What short joke? Did you hear me make a short joke?" he asks her innocently. He does a bad job of it. There is as it turns out a honey crueller, and Clint doesn't throw it, you can't do that to donuts. It's just not right, instead the box is offered in her direction. "Dunno if it'll be really good or really bad, got it at a place on Lara's block," Clint says, who knew if rich people knew from donuts.

He nods about the sleeping plans and then says, "It went alright, world's still spinning, I finished two crossword puzzles and a Sudoku and I met one of the Young Avengers. So not bad. So what about this wall you hit? Trouble with the stuff Lotus stuck in the files?"

Quake has posed:
The box is divested of the lone honey creuller, which Skye takes an immediate bite of. "Mmmphf," she mouths around her bite. "I noticed. Just like I noticed it's nowhere near the Avengers mansion." Well, relatively nowhere near it. "Checking the place out?"

They'd still not had that talk about Lara's offer.

"And I saw that short joke. Speaking of.." Skye makes to move her hands, then makes a noise of disgust. "Whatever. My hands are full. But I was thinking, that whole not being deaf anymore? I don't think you should stop with the signing." Not that he signed as a matter of course in their day to day, but it was a thing she'd been thinking about - especially after his reaction when she'd sassed him in sign the night of the pool table bet with Darcy. Skye had to admit, it was kind of hot being able to do that, even if nobody else might look at it the same way. "I think we should continue to sign," she finishes, taking another bite of creuller. "That is if you'd teach me?"

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
@emit Yeah, it was definitely not on the way home. "Yeah, checking it out, seeing if I could catch Thor doing the walk of shame," he says with a smile. Yeah, Thor and Lara weren't a thing, but it was still funny. "But mostly that first thing," he says. He doesn't say more but the way he looks at her expresses what he's thinking, 'it time?'.

And on the subject of talking without speaking, the signing suggestion catches him off-guard. Not because he hadn't thought of teaching Skye, but because it hadn't really sunk in that knowing how to sign wasn't the necessity that it had been since he was six anymore. It was a choice.

"Huh," Clint says more about that revelation than Skye's question. He looks to her then, "You still want to learn?"

Quake has posed:
Skye kicks a toe into Clint's calf. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't want to. It was kinda hot watching your face when you found out I could do that. And besides, I was thinking there are a lot of advantages to being able to do that." Her grin for him is broad. "That's if you don't mind having a student?"

But the other has her sobering some, and she nods. "Yeah. It's time." Her coffee is sipped at. "Was the price she mentioned good? You looked a little like you'd been given free reign of the bow shop when she threw it out there. And are we Greenwich people?" The question making her laugh a little. "Is Thor?"

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
"Well if you thought my face was hot, think about how it was for me that you took the time to learn that," he gives her foot a gentle nudge with his calf and a smile over his coffee. "Sure, I'd sign okay I'll teach you, but coffee," he grins sort of borrowing her own joke. "But yeah, let's do that. I can teach you to read lips too."

He looks at her then with a softened expression that expressed just what this meant to him.

The other thing, the house thing, is met with less enthusiasm if only because he hadn't come close to making up his mind yet. "Yeah, it was good, remember the couple of places I was showing you online the other day? The two bedroom places right across the street from where I stopped that mugging? Like a couple hundred cheaper," he explained. "Thing is, while it's a better neighbourhood, and bigger, could we use that money for something else, and do we need all that space." When Skye brings up the whole neighbourhood, he makes a face. "That's the other thing, I mean, this morning it was all people out walking fluffy little dogs that probably spend their days in purses, and the only people like us I recognized were the ones emptying trash cans, and working the counter at the bakery."

He considers things, "So, not really Greenwich people. But it is a really nice place."

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
"Oh, and neither is Thor, as far as I saw," he finishes with a grin.

Quake has posed:
He gets a crookedly soft look in return. "Read lips, too?" Probably looking just as goofy as he does right this second, and totally missing the irony of the fact she's missed that in how touched she is that he's made the counter offer.

r"Coffee," Skye agrees, lifting her own cup in tribute. "Know what I found funny? That hand-flapping mouth gesture? Means no. I laughed so hard when I found that out."

The goofy look is replaced with a smirk.

The smirk doesn't last long in the face of the more serious discussion, a discussion that was already sounding all sorts of 'not them'. "Fluffy dogs, huh? Fuck, Hotshot." She sounds disappointed, but in that way of people who know they really don't have a place that they fit in. Who stand by the walls at parties while the golden people have fun. Something of how SHIELD has almost always made her feel - up until recently - and now this conversation is making her feel that way again. "It was a nice place. Lots of room. I don't imagine we'd be thinking of how to beat off muggers there." But all the other stuff? She wasn't sure. Not even the thought of Thor in the middle of that made her smile.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint has to look away, just too much emotion going and back and forth in those looks, but he's smiling as he does it. "Yeah," he says when he looks back. "And so, that's a yes?" he asks, needlessly. He already knew what she'd say.

Clint salutes in return before quirking a brow then laughing as she mentions what she found, "Yeah, it does," he says. "Though there's something to be said for the way you-, I mean us, hearing people use it," he makes the sign. "Blah, blah, blah."

The house though, that brings him back down to Earth. Looking at her he can see the same sort of things she does, how they'd never really fit in. "Yeah, it's really nice, and no muggers, and if there were, probably'd have designer switch blades," he jokes. Still the unease lingers, did they really want to be reminded of how different they were each day. "So?" he asks with a sip of coffee. "What are you thinking?"

Quake has posed:
Skye grins at him, and finishes her donut, making a mocking 'blah blah' hand at him with her sticky fingers before licking them all off, to give him a nodding fist of yes. Just two little pumps of it. Like she'd learned when she'd gone looking.

The house, though...

"I don't know." Which is an utter lie. She knows what she's thinking, giving him a half-assed weak attempt at a wryness of grin, her lips a half frown/half grin that did nothing but make her look the miserable she felt. "Just made me realize it wasn't ever going to change. Won't ever matter where we are. We just don't fit. I just don't fit," she ammends, realizing she can't speak for him. "I really wanted to, you know? I mean, our stuff won't even fill the livingroom, but I was trying to picture it there. And then all that shit about fluffy white dogs and people like us picking up the trash. That's like two different worlds."

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
The sticky blah, blah, blah hand makes Clint smile. "Dork," he says fondly, before he puts his fingers of his right hand to his lips and taps them against his coffee cup in place of his right hand. 'Good'.

That house

That little half-smile just breaks Clint's heart. He gives Skye a fond look, "We both don't fit, trust me on that one," he says. "I am fairly sure ex-crook-carny rates equal with van-living-hacker-girl." They didn't fit with the world but at least they had each other right?

"And I was seeing it there too. But yeah, I dunno about that neighbourhood. I mean we could just shut the door and not go out until we need to? I dunno. Don't want to have to hole up in my apartment unless it's because I want to hole up in my apartment, you know what I mean?"

Quake has posed:
Skye grins at him. She'd saved this one. Her coffee in her left hand, she made a fist, with the thumb curled around the top, that she taps against her forehead. The fingers of her fist remain in that curl as she presses her coffee holding hand and her fist, crossed over her heart. Then unfurls those fingers to make a large "C" of them, The C crumpling in on itself as she mimes it moving away from her like an arrow, index finger, thumb, and middle finger in a straight line out as ring and pinky lie against her palm.

Hotshot"/~Skye loves Clint/Hotshot~/Hotshot"

Her eyes hold his, then fall away.

"There's a backyard," she says quietly. "I don't know. Not like we would have a yard anywhere else. But we could around the block, even if we had to beat off the muggers and the hookers. Dammit. It was.. Ever just want something so that for a little bit you can feel like maybe you're not that other person? I'm not ashamed of me. I just sometimes wish.."

Skye wasn't sure what she wished. And wishing hadn't gotten her anywhere in the past.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
The gestures move him, but he doesn't speak by mouth or by hand, not yet. Instead he nods about the house saying, "Yeah, I've felt that a time or two," he says of it. "We could give it a try?" he offers, before she makes those gestures and he sets down his coffee.

Clint meets her eyes then and despite flinching away from the too much feeling before, he keeps them there so she could see through his hands and eyes, how much what she'd said meant. At first his gestures mirror hers, the names spelled out through gestures reversed. Then when it's done he stands, and using both hands he turns them about each other towards his chest, the hands separate then come together again closed fists, heel of palm to heel of palm, fingers to fingers, then the right hand is raised in a tight c-shape.

'Come with me'

He backs away towards the bedroom.

Quake has posed:
"We.. could try.." She agrees with caution, afraid to believe.

And then he returns her gesture, completing the loop of them; the arrow of him flying from her back to the touch of her name at his brow. And like him, there's a sudden overwhelming moment of emotion she's not quite sure what to do with. They'd never melded their languages that way before - their silences suddenly given sound that lips don't make, but eyes can hear. It was such an odd thought, and one that threatened to slip her away.

Only he's asking her to come, and she's helpless before him. Suddenly needing to leave the thoughts of new house and home alone to be where her heart tells her she belongs. Where her past doesn't matter.

And all the world is merely ~Skye loves Clint/Hotshot loves Skye~

(..and that's a fade, boys and girls)