Owner	Pose
Clint Barton	The trip had not gone according to plan what with the rescue of Lag and the return to the States. Though while some of the trip had to be jettisoned, this was something Clint and Skye weren't able to let go of: the return to Skye's village. It felt more like a pilgrimage than a vacation, even knowing the Chinese government had bulldozed the old village and new settlers had built their own in its place it felt somehow right to visit. The motor of their little boat roared and sputtered as they went upstream along a tributary of the Yangtze River, Clint steering the boat by the little handle attached to the ancient outboard motor. He handled it well, giving truth to the claim he made when they set off that he was 'good at boats'. The river snaked and turned but according to the maps and the SHIELD GPS the village was just ahead after the next turn. "We're almost there," Clint calls to Skye over the sound of the motor with a smile to Skye. "Wake up Fan," he says nodding to their erstwhile translator who was napping in the damp bottom of the boat. He was another cousin of Jun the tattoo artist, who just happened to speak the local dialect.
Skye Johnson	Not gone according to plan... That was an understatement. Yes, there had been Lag, and the followup mission there. Not to mention the fact that that mission had gone south and he'd been put on ice until FitzSimmons could work their magic, but no sooner had the pair returned to their 'vacation' (it was starting to look more like a working holiday, and Fury's smug look when he told them to "by all mean, go finish your vacation" hadn't been all that reassuring that there wouldn't be other interruptions) than things had gone... well, pretty typically for the pair, to be honest. Actually, it had been a stroke of luck in some ways, and had turned their little vacation into something much more special... Stepping out of their day learning ramen with Jun's cousin (the chef), the pair had inadvertently stepped into the middle of a rather nasty gang incident, complete with the takedown of several beloved local businesses and their venerable owners - collateral damage, and pointed messages that the new regime was here to stay. The pair had successfully interfered to the point where the gang had backed off enough that the locals in the area were able to make a stand and retake their businesses. Skye and Clint had no doubt that wasn't the end of things, but for the day it had been, and Skye and Clint found themselves the honoured guests of many, their vacation from that point being a series of being sent along a trail of individual people's houses, or places where they'd been vouched for - and paid for - so that the remainder of their tour of Hong Kong and China had been quite something different than planned initially. "Suuuuure," Skye drawls, smirking. "Why is it my job to wake the tour guide?" She does, though, and settles back to looking at where they are with in intense gaze. *This* she told herself, was where she was from. All her life, she'd never known - had imagined she'd begun things in some back alley in New York (would have sworn she'd never been outside of New York state before SHIELD) - and she'd been wrong. Unfathomably wrong. And now she was coming home.
Clint Barton	Clint grins, "Because I'm steering the boat?" he shoots back cheekily. "But if you want us to crash," he says letting go of the controls for just a second before grabbing them again. He chuckles lightly before turning his eyes back to the river. As places to come from went this one wasn't bad, quiet, beautiful scenery, and likely as far as one could get in this part of the world from the troubles back in Hong Kong. Which was good, not that he hadn't felt a certain sense of satisfaction putting the gangsters on their asses, but, that little itch between his shoulder blades hadn't eased until they really got off the beaten track, and even then he made sure Reggie and his arrows were close at hand.
Skye Johnson	Once they'd made plans to go to the village, Merida had become part of Skye's gear, too. She sat next to Reggie in the boat. Out here in the rural countryside, it was better safe than sorry Clint had argued, and Skye couldn't come up with anything against that. Besides, they could do target shooting. After all, most of their other stuff had already been sent home. This, the tail end of their journey was being done with minimal gear - two backpacks, and their bows. And yes, Skye has her laptop. One of them at any rate. And a solar charger. Because Skye. Right now, though, they were nearing their destination and she was getting nervous. "Because I'm steering the boat," she minces, mimicking Clint, only to get more serious. "Say, do you think I have a Chinese citizenship?"
Clint Barton	Despite the teasing Clint could see the signs of nervousness in Skye, and offers her a sincere smile, even as he flappy-mouths with his free hand. "Fan's still not up," he points out before answering the more serious question. "Maybe, not sure what the laws are here, like if they're a country where if you're born here you're a citizen or if there's some hoops to jump through." He considers it. "Which are you hoping for?"
Skye Johnson	"Hand flapping? We're back to hand flapping?" Skye reaches over the side of the boat and scoops up a handful of water that she sluices along to hit Clint - hitting Fan in the process, startling him awake, which is just as well as her previous poke had only managed to convince him to grunt and roll over. "He's up now," she declares, even as she frowns. "Not sure what I want. Was mostly making noise, I mean, they found me here. Nobody knows who my parents were. I have US citizenship, but what if my parents were Chinese. Or one of them? I mean, they're not going to conscript me for the army or something, are they? Or SHIELD isn't suddenly going to find me a security risk and kick me out?" All nonsense (at least the SHIELD stuff, given Fury knew her past when he took her in), and if she weren't dealing with growing nerves, she'd have laughed at herself for some of those questions. The conscription one, though.. that one might have legitimacy.
Clint Barton	"Apparently," Clint answers before the water splashes him and he raises an arm to shield himself. "You really do want to crash the boat don't you?" he teases. Clint considers the rest, "Well SHIELD won't kick you out, I mean technically China is a signatory of the SHIELD charter with the UN so I think you're good there. As for the rest, no idea," he says frowning a little. "Might be good to officially check on the rules once we're out of the country though." He considers, "Though unofficially Hey, Fan, how does someone become a citizen of China?" he asks their bleary eyed translator as he sits up, frowning at his damp clothes. Fan rubs his eyes, "What you want in? I thought the low hanging doors would have run you- hey!" Clint splashes water at him again. "No for Skye, I mean she was born here, that make her a citizen?" he asks. Fan frowns, "If her parents are Chinese and lived here, maybe? I don't know, not a lawyer, just a language teacher." Clint snorts looking to Skye, "So, guess that's a solid maybe?"
Skye Johnson	"Signatory to the charter isn't really all that reassuring, you know. But I guess you're right. Fury knew that much about me when he hired me on." Which, saying, did make Skye feel a lot better. "More worried the Chinese government will do something stupid like put a claim on me. Or I don't know. I have no clue what they can do." She does, however, know someone who might know. Or might at least know where to look to find out these things: Matt Murdock. However, that's a thought for the future. Right now she's got bigger things to think about. "A firm maybe. Yeah. That's what I figured." "So, are we here?"
Clint Barton	Clint offers a smile to Skye across the boat. "Well, I suspect Fury's not going to let them take you, besides, we're sneaky push comes to shove I am sure we can figure a way out of here." Even if they're a somewhat famous hacker and a six-foot-three white man in China. Fan shrugs. "Well if the government isn't looking for you, you're probably okay, I'd be more worried about those gangs back in Hong Kong." "Thanks," Clint says with a smirk for Fan before he looks ahead to the turn in the river and answers Skye's question, "We will be in just a sec." They make the turn and the village comes into view, clusters of buildings lining the river's edge before giving way to low forested hills. (https://i.imgur.com/k5kRNeT.jpg). Clint turns to watch Skye as it comes into view, announcing: "You're home."
Skye Johnson	"Oh, so we're just going to be sneaky, huh?" Skye grins over at Clint. "You're pretty noticeable, you know. I mean, Reggie. Dead giveaway that it's you." She pretends to squint at him. "I guess we could put a wig and moustache on Reggie and we might get away with it. Bet Merida would find him more attractive that way. You know, the whole danger and mystery of it all." At this point, Skye can't help laughing. It might be slightly nervous laughter, but it's clear she's dealing. Fan she tells, "I'm not so bad with the idea of gangs. I'm pretty sure I know how to deal with them. Governments, however? They scare me." Says she who had a prison sentence hanging over her head until fairly recently, and then again when she'd come out of undercover. The paperwork had barely been completed getting her off the hook for the various crimes she'd been complicit in while working with Rising Tide on her mission, so her concerns were fairly real. There had been some fairly nasty things in all that legal paperwork. And then they're coming round the bend, and she's all eyes. Silently gazing on the place she'd been born well, the village. She really wasn't sure where specifically she'd been born. And it certainly had changed since then, given the place had been razed at the time, but it was home. Home in a way she'd never known she'd missed. Something in her gut clenched and she found herself blinking entirely too rapidly. "It's really real," she gets out, finally.
Clint Barton	Clint laughs, "Fan, can you swat her for me?" he teases. Fan shakes his head, emphatically. "Smart man. And okay fine I hear you on the governments thing, but seriously, push comes to shove, I have secure comms and we can always get May to fly down in one of the new stealth quinjets and pick us up," he says, then smiles. "Provided Fury wants us back." As they near the bend in the river he adds. "Danger and mystery? I thought Merida would dig Reggie with a mustache because it'd match hers," He ducks as the village comes into view. Though when he sees Skye's reaction, he straightens and smiles, wishing he could reach across the length of the boat and grab her hand. "Yeah, it really is," he says. He guides the boat towards one of the little jetties asking Fan if there's any signs saying not to, when he says no, Clint bumps the boat gently against the jetty, then loops a rope around one of the cleats set into the wood, with a look to Skye. "Want to take a closer look?"
Skye Johnson	Skye laughs outright when Clint tries to get Fan to swat her. "You did not just do that," she tells him. Of course Fan is wise and doesn't get involved in the two's quarrel, even if it's most definitely a lighthearted one. Clint, however, earns himself a full on, "Someone wants to sleep alone. On the ground. Outside" for his teasing about Merida. She leans and mock-whispers to the bow, "We'll get you a new boyfriend as soon as we get home. Someone even prettier than Reggie, and Reggie will be very sorry he let Hotshot say those horrible, horrible things about you. It's not a mustache. It's love fuzz." Which is even sillier than a moustache when it comes down to it. Then they're bumping up against the dock, and Skye's answer to wanting to take a closer look is getting off the boat, stepping onto the dock, leaving poor Clint to grab up her backpack and Merida. Yep. Skye just walked off the boat without her laptop.
Clint Barton	"I totally did," Clint replies. He laughs at the threat and laughs even harder at the love fuzz remark. "God, you really want me to crash don't you!" "Please don't," Fan implores quietly eying the river nervously. "Don't worry, I've got this." Then they're at the dock and Skye's off without her stuff, yes, including her laptop which is like Linus without his blanket. Clint blinks, shuts down the engine, grabs the kit and hops out turning around to offer a hand out to Fan. "Woah, slow down there Keyboard!" he calls after Skye. As he does a man comes out of one of the houses, older and frowning seeing Skye he gestures at their boat and speaks rapidly in some form of Chinese.
Skye Johnson	Skye is off in her own little world.. at least until the older man comes out frowning and gesturing, speaking to her rapidly in words she doesn't know. She comes up short, frowning back at him, then remembers Fan, turning back to their guide, "What's he saying?"
Clint Barton	Clint helps Fan onto the dock and the two of them join Skye. Fan rattles away in Chinese before he turns to the couple. "His dock, he wants fifty to use it, or equivelent." He means US dollars. Clint sighs, "Sure," he says pulling out his wallet and handing over the amount in local dollars. "Does he know if there's any of the old village left or anyone who can show us around?" Fan translates as the money is handed over. The man gestures towards the edge of town, with more explanations given in Chinese. Fan nods now and then before turning back to the couple. "There is an old shrine that survived the old town near the forest. He also says there is a man here who lived in the old village."
Skye Johnson	Clint reaching for his wallet saves Skye trying to remember where hers is (likely in her backpack that she left on the boat, that Clint is carrying). "I wouldn't put that away," she murmurs to Clint. She nods to Fan, "Ask for directions. To the shrine. And the man."
Clint Barton	"Huh?" Clint begins before he realizes what she meant. "Good point," he keeps the wallet out and yep, her bag is slung over one of his shoulders with his bow bag over the other. Fan carries on with the old man, and sure enough Skye's prophecy comes true. "He wants another fifty." "He can have twenty-five," Clint says. Fan repeats his words.The old man mutters something then nods. Clint hands over the money. A short conversation follows with lots of pointing before Fan comes back to them and says, "Okay, he told me the way to the shrine and said, the man we're looking for lives in the green house near the middle of town." "There better not be five green houses," Clint grumbles. Fan looks thoughtful and asks the old man a question. "No, only one," he supplies. Clint nods, putting his wallet away and sliding Skye's bag off his arm to hand it to her as he asks, "So, shrine first or the guy?"
Skye Johnson	"Skye takes her backpack and bow and gets the load balanced while she makes her decision. "Guy first. Shrine second." She didn't say it, but she felt like a shrine was a place you went after. To be thankful. Some might look at it the other way, that you went there first to bring hope to the journey, but her gut told her she was right. That she wanted to talk to the man first. Skye's gut had always been good to her.
Clint Barton	Fan nods, "Then let's find the green house." Clint shifts his own bags around to balance his load and when Fan starts walking he falls in beside Skye. He signs, ~How are you feeling~ his look makes it a question.
Skye Johnson	Skye's fingers answer with a succinct ~Don't let me run away~. The abrupt flickers of the gestures making it clear that she's unnerved and anxious. Though she's still plowing on. It's really debatable how serious she is about the not letting her run. The girl doesn't exactly have a track record of running away from much, but the truth about her past might just be that tipping point. ~Didn't the records say there were no survivors?~
Clint Barton	Clint considers that, ~Yeah they did. Scam~ he signs with another questioning look. Joking or not, Clint stays close to Skye, even if he doesn't think she'll run he stays close by for support. As they walk people peek out of windows and in some cases kids actually come out of their houses to stare, point at Clint and talk to one another excitedly. Fan smiles back, "They don't get many visitors from your part of the world." Clint chuckles and waves, "I guess we can write off sneaking out, huh?" he murmurs to Skye.
Skye Johnson	"You start signing autographs and I'm pretending I don't know you," Skye warns with a grin. It's a grin that borders on a frown though. ~Likely. But we go and hear him out anyway? Why would someone scam about that? Unless, of course, the scammer was the first man - the one they'd paid. The man in the green house might just be an innocent bystander. Skye couldn't imagine they got a lot of people showing up asking questions, let alone many asking about that one specific event. Which also meant it might not be a scam at all. Skye was losing her surety about this, not certain what to think anymore. "I'd have paid him the fifty," she murmurs. Which made it just as well Clint was the one with the wallet this time. She knew she had little perspective on this.
Clint Barton	"Maybe they're here to see you?" Clint teases with a hip check. "Really, though I've been to enough one horse towns in my day to know any new thing is worth checking out," he grins at a kid that runs into the middle of the street to wave. "Especially at that age." ~Definitely worth hearing him out~ Clint was wary by nature, and even as he did his whole Avengers smile and wave things he was checking out the surroundings. Still, it did seem an odd thing to lie about if they were paying up front like they were. "Well if this checks out I'll give him the other twenty five on the way out of town," Clint promises. Then there it was, the green house in the middle of town. It looked in good shape and given the small crowd of kids and the noise they made, the occupant a man with greying hair and sad eyes peers through the window at them. "Well at least there's someone home," Clint says before looking to Fan. "So, what do we do? Knock? Send you up first?" "I can talk to him." Clint looks to Skye for her take.
Skye Johnson	~Well we didn't come all this way to not talk to him~ Skye points out, her fingers loose enough to indicate some amusement. It was a good sign. While he was checking out the surroundings, Skye was trying to size up the situation - whether it was likely to be a scam or not - and more importantly what she thought she was going to get out of this. Likely nothing, she told herself, if only to try and stave off the inevitable disappointment. When they come upon the house she stops for a moment, biting at her lower lip. "No," she tells Fan. "We all go together. I mean, yes, you talk to him, but well, maybe we could stand, you know, near?" They weren't going to understand what Fan said no matter what, but she hoped they might be able to read the body language and get a sense of just how much bullshit they were being fed. She didn't want to be so close as to spook the old man before they got to speak to him, but she needed to be able to read the pair while they were talking. That, and if he really had been in the village when she was born, Skye wanted to be close to him. Close enough that if he refused to speak to them she could at least say say what? she asked herself. That she'd gotten close to answers? That she could have reached out and touched a part of her past the way some people touched things like the Wailing Wall, or statues of the Madonna, thinking that somehow that simple gesture might mark and change their lives.
Clint Barton	Clint makes a face back at Skye and hand-flaps, but doesn't prod further leaving her to her thoughts while he scopes out the village. When they get to the house, he nods with Skye's decision and follows as Fan leads the way and knocks on the door. Things are quiet for a moment after the face disappears from the window. Then slowly the door open and the man is standing there looking at them and then past them to the village and all their faces turned in their direction. The man and Fan exchange words before he looks to Clint and Skye and says, "English?" his accent is heavy and it's clear he is out of practice but he's understandable.
Skye Johnson	The hand flaps earn a tongue sticking out, and not much more. Skye has bigger concerns. When the old man hesitantly asks 'English?', Skye is so excited that she signs to him ~Yes!~ only to laugh at herself in some embarrassment as she realizes what she's done. "Yes," she confirms. "English, please." "Can we come talk?"
Clint Barton	Clint laughs at Skye's signing to the man, who looks puzzled until he understands and joins in the laughing, though he still carries himself stiffly, like he's nervous. "Yes," the man says stepping into the house to let them in. "I am Duan Jian, uh," he thinks for a moment, "Jian, call me Jian." Fan steps in after the man explaining, "Family names come first here," he says and then adds to Clint "Watch your head." Clint snorts and ducks to get into the door he looks back at Skye, smirking, but whatever short joke he has isn't said aloud. Inside the house is cluttered, but homey, and the man leads the way to his living room, nodding to a table to one side. "Want tea?" he asks.
Skye Johnson	Over the course of their visit, Skye had become used to the fact that *everything* began with tea, and the fact that they were being asked was merely rhetorical. The old man would have tea, so they would have tea. Tea was the breather everyone needed before other business began. "Uh, sure, of course," Skye answers. She didn't have to duck. And Clnt lived long enough to be asked if he wanted tea by virtue of not taking advantage of the opening the old man had given him. "We were told you were here when the village was attacked. About 24 years ago?"
Clint Barton	Clint chuckles soundlessly at the little exchange of looks at the doorway and heads into the living room, setting down his bag carefully by the wall and sitting down just as carefully on one of the chairs. Jian smiles, "Okay, please sit," he says to the others and moves to the kitchen to get the tea. Sounds of his rummaging come from the doorway as he says something in Chinese to Fan and Fan answers back. Clint shoots Fan a look and Fan replies quietly, "Clarifying." "Mm, yes I lived here then but wasn't here when it was attacked."
Skye Johnson	Skye takes a seat nearby Clint, nodding. "I guess that explains it. But I suppose that means you don't know much about what happened that day, do you?" She tries not to sound too disappointed. "I was hoping to find out what happened then. To the village.. and the people who were here."
Clint Barton	There is silence from the kitchen from the moment after the questions are asked. Fan calls out a question in Chinese, but gets no reply. Eventually, Jian replies in English, "No, don't know what happened. Boat broke, when I fixed and came back everyone was dead." Another pause. "Why do you want to know?"
Skye Johnson	Skye gives a helpless little shrug. It was pretty much as she had expected: she wasn't about to get any answers. Still, she answers Jian. "Not everyone was dead. I was there. Somehow I survived it. I was hoping maybe you might know what happened. Or who my parents were. Something."
Clint Barton	There is a sound of a breaking cup from the kitchen then Jian is at the doorway. "You were here?" he asks staring at Skye, as if he could find the answers he sought in her face. "Who are you?"
Skye Johnson	Surprisingly, Skye doesn't startle when the cup breaks. It's just another droning noise in the background of her mind as she runs through the whole depressing litany of she wasn't going to get any answers. That they'd come here for virtually nothing. Jian's question gets through, though, and she sits under that stare of his miserably. "I was here," she confirms. "I was just baby. And that's the problem, I don't know who I am. I was hoping you could tell me that."
Clint Barton	Jian blinks rapidly. "A baby?" he asks crossing the room slowly still looking hard at Skye's face. "Only She had a baby then," he says the capitalization of she coming through in his voice. He stops his approach, seeming to have second thoughts. "How do I know this is true?" he asks. "There were others who came to the village that night. How do I know you're not one of them?"
Skye Johnson	"She?" Skye's heart skips a beat at that single word. "You knew my mother then? She was Chinese or" Skye stops as the capitalization of "She" comes through. "Oh. That doesn't sound very good." She's almost about to say more when his tone changes, and his questions come at her. "What do you mean how do you know I'm not one of them? Do I look old enough to be one of them? And I don't have any proof. Nothing except the files I was shown. That I was found in the rubble by a SHIELD team and nobody was alive. The whole village was burnt down. That a bunch of the team died saving me." And more over the years, but that wasn't likely to convince the man of anything. "I don't have anything, really, to prove it." Except she told herself, given the way he said "She" that little tidbit might be enough. If it wasn't enough to convince him she was one of 'the others' who had come to the village that night. "I'm not.. that is, I'm not exactly human, am I?" "They were looking for me."
Clint Barton	Jian looks to Fan, who says something in Chinese. Jian frowns looking at both Clint and Skye. "They were looking for her, your mother, Jiaying," he explains. "And no, not human, a god."
Skye Johnson	"That's utterly ridiculous," Skye comes back, all bristly at the thought. "Gods aren't" She's about to say 'real' when she's smacked with the reality of having met several.. well, aliens running around in the guise of gods - elder gods in the scheme of humanity. Worshipped because they weren't understood then. Undeniably powerful. But ultimately.. Skye had no real answer to that. "I am not a god. That's just stupid. This was a waste of my time. Everyone's time." Even if he'd said there'd only been one infant in the village at the time. Skye was quite willing to come up with some other explanation. She just didn't have one quite yet.
Clint Barton	Jian says something angrily to Fan and Fan translates. "He says it's not stupid," even as Jian moves into the house and pulls open cabinet. Clint frowns, arms crossed his expression reads plain, he's skeptical, but at the same time a little worried. He puts his hand on Skye's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "May as well hear him out." Jian comes back with a picture, it's of a group of villagers at some sort of festival by the decorations in the background in the center of the picture is a pretty women with asian features in some sort of formal gown and beaded headdress while a European man towers beside her and the other villagers. Jian points emphatically at the woman. "Jiaying," he says.
Skye Johnson	"I didn't mean you're stupid," Skye tries to explain. "I meant me. I'm not.. I mean, I don't have any powers or anything special. I'm just.. there's got to be some other explanation.." The others are given an imploring look. "Right? There's got to be." But when Jian brings the photo over, she's all eyes for it, trying to see herself in the pretty Asian woman. "Can I touch it?" The picture she means. "And who is that beside her?"
Clint Barton	Clint opens his mouth sort of gobsmacked when she looks for support. He wants to believe it's not true, but there's those markers in Skye's DNA and they have to come from somewhere. Jian nods, "Yes, can touch." He looks at the man. "Cal," he says. "Cal Johnson, he was doctor, he was the one who teach me English." Clint blinks when Jian gives the last name. He looks to Skye. Well so much for this being bullshit "So was, Cal and Jaiying, were they together?" Fan has to translate that one. "Yes," Jian says. "Married."
Skye Johnson	"I don't understand," Skye says, fingering the picture, her fingertips running first over Jiaying, and then Cal. "It has to be coincidence? Doesn't it?" She looks first to Jian, who won't understand, then to Clint. "If they had a last name, why didn't anyone why isn't it in my files? Why'd they just stop there?" She didn't have any answers to that. But she did have a picture. A look, finally at who her parents were. "He's tall," Skye notes, almost smiling at that. "Just my luck, I didn't inherit any of that. I wonder why they left me. Why they never came back to see if.." The obvious comes to her: they were dead. Her parents were dead, and the troubles when she was an infant stemmed back to the people responsible for it. "Who attacked the village, and why?" Skye looks to Jian for answers.
Clint Barton	"Pretty high odds on that one, Keyboard. Not sure how the agents got your name, but it sounds like they did." Of course anyone they could ask was dead and buried. Jian frowns and goes back to the cabinet and comes back with something else, a uniform patch, he sets it down beside the picture on the table, the symbol stitched inside of the circle of the patch is all to familiar, a skull and tentacles: Hydra. Jian says something in Chinese to Fan, and he translates. "He says when he and his son came back to the village, everyone was dead, and there were strangers there wearing these, he took some to report it, but the government never did anything." Fan asks something else in Chinese. "Don't know why they came. But killed everyone. My wife, my daughter, my father," he says. "Maybe they hear about Jiaying. Want Her for themselves."
Skye Johnson	"Still weird," Skye tells Clint. "But you're right, it makes a pretty solid case that it's them, and I'm me." When Jian brings over the patch, Skye scowls. "Hydra," she says quietly. "We know of them. Not very nice people." Which was an understatement. And that it was them added certain irony to recent events. If only Karl knew. "Maybe," she agrees of wanting Jiaying. "They like power. They want to twist it for themselves. Make people want more of it and work for them. World domination and all that." She doesn't tell him it's entirely likely his government had links to Hydra even then. Payoffs or dirty fingers in all the levels of government, it really mattered little, she'd seen evidence of it herself. It wasn't surprising. What was surprising is that there wasn't more of it going on everywhere.
Clint Barton	Clint nods hand still on Skye's shoulder. "Yeah it does," he says before offering with a faint smile, "But hey," he signs the rest ~Your mom is kinda hot~ The humour drains from his face at the patch confirming what the report had suspected. "Fan can you help me out here, can you tell Jian we're definitely not with these assholes," he says tapping the badge and shaking his head. "We're the guys who fight these asssholes." Fan translates and Jian nods, "Good," he says. Jian turns to Skye. "Very sorry this happened. Your parents were good people."
Skye Johnson	When Clint signs that, Skye gives him a look. "Want to rethink that one, Hotshot?" Though her fingers move through ~She's very pretty. They make a nice couple.~ She's still not sure she sees herself in either of them, but someone would have had to have been playing an awfully cruel joke for too many years to just happen to stick her with that name, given her profile at SHIELD. "You can say, SHIELD, Hotshot. We can say that, can't we?" Telling Fan, "Like he said, we kind of make it our job to hunt those guys down and make them regret getting up in the morning." Jian's apology met with a slightly uncomfortable, "It's not your fault. I never knew them. I mean, if there were anything else you knew.. actually, could I keep this picture?" Hopeful.
Clint Barton	Clint chuckles, "No way, I stand by my statement," he says before signing back. ~They do. Your dad looks like fun too~ He really did, in a goofy sort of way, with his wild hair the way he smiled at the camera, his hand placed lovingly on his wife's back. "Right," Clint says about SHIELD. "Wasn't sure the name would mean much out here, but I guess it's just rural China, not the moon." He looks to Jian. "You know SHIELD?"
Skye Johnson	"You're impossible," Skye complains. "Figures that's what you'd have to say about her." And he's kind of right about her father, too. She taps a finger on the photo, on Cal. "Reminds me of someone I know." Her nose crinkling with her amusement. When Jian remarks about SHIELD not being especially liked either, she shrugs, grinning at Clint. "Figures. We're not *quite* the bad guys. Just the annoying cousins nobody wants to invite to family gatherings. I thought you said China was signatory to SHIELD." She has to agree. "And here I thought Fury was grumpy because he had agents like me." She watches and waits while Jian goes to fetch whatever it is he's remembered.
Clint Barton	Clint laughs, "Oh and who would that be?" he asks playing along. "And, would have been fun to grab a beer with the guy," he says. "Have that talk about the horrible things I'm doing to his daughter." There is a bit of a grin at that and Fan rolls his eyes at the both of them. "They are, but mostly to keep an eye on us, they like to do their own thing," Clint says of China and SHIELD. When Jian gets to the door, he beckons them to follow, like what he wants to show them is outside.
Skye Johnson	"Oh, I don't know. Maybe that guy at the bow shop. The one who thought I was fooling around on Ant Man." She shakes her head. "I don't even look like Wasp. What was he thinking?" She shakes her head, then joins Fan in the eye rolling. "Riiiight, because you'd sit down with my parents and talk about our sex life. Do you want Wade to make a documentary? Seriously. Don't say things like that." She's still shaking her head at Clint when Jian motions they should follow, so she gets up and joins him at the back door. "What?"
Clint Barton	Clint frowns cocking his head, "Well I think you're about the same height," he says after a second before adding, "When she's at full size, that wasn't another short joke!" he insists. Yeah maybe the eye was deserved. "Shhh, don't tempt fate by saying W-A-U-D-E's name," Clint says about Deadpool, before clarifying, "The U's because he's Canadian." Then Jian is beckoning from the door. Clint follows Skye, grabbing their stuff as he does. Just in case. He needn't have worried, they walk through the village and find themselves at the shrine the old man at the jetty mentioned. "This is Her shrine," Jian says he approaches and bows deeply. The shrine is largely overgrown, but past the altar for burning incense there is a painting of Jaiying, stylized, in a gown like from the picture, but by how it's faded it's much older than twenty-four years. "It was the best place to put them." He ducks down in front of the altar, pulling at the weathered wood until it gives way and an old silken bag clinks to the ground. He lifts it reverently. "These were hers, I found them when I came back to the village, and kept them so the men couldn't find them if they came back. But they should be yours." He offers Skye the bag.
Skye Johnson	Skye just shakes her head more. "See, Merida, this is why mommy is getting you a new boyfriend and is going to make nice with Jimmy at the bow shop." Then Skye laughs and leans her head against Clint for a moment. "Was too a short joke, and you know it. I'm not so short it went over my head." When they get to the shrine, Skye is in something of awe. It's clear it isn't used anymore, which in and of itself is interesting to her. But that it had existed, and been used - specifically to venerate the woman who was her mother? Skye was taken aback by that. Just as she's taken aback when the bag is offered to her. Her mouth is trying to protest even as her hands reach gingerly for the silken thing. "What is it? I mean, what's in the bag?" Asking even as she's opening the thing to see what is clinking within it.
Clint Barton	Clint laughs and shakes his head. "Hey! Talking to bows is my thing," he complains shaking his head. When Skye leans against him he wraps his arm around her and gives her a quick squeeze, barking a "Ha!" he says. "Guess we can't say you're too small to take a bit of joking at your expense." He grins at his own joke as they walk through the village. At the temple, he pauses, a little blown away by it all, the shrine wasn't all that different they'd seen all over China but this one had a painting of Skye's mom in it. He frowns reaching for his phone to snap a picture but with Jian to busy to ask if it would be okay, he holds off. "Her most valuable possessions." When the bag is opened, it reveals the source of the clinking, four long blue crystals shot through with veins of some sort of silver metal.
Skye Johnson	Skye grins when he gets her short-joke comeback. It's a sign that some things in her world are still the same and all right. At the shrine, Skye pours the crystals out into her palm. "I wonder what they were for. Or if this is what they were looking for." She looks questioningly to Jian, though she doesn't expect he has an answer. It's enough to know they were important to her mother. They were a tangible connection.
Clint Barton	Clint and Fan both stare a moment at the crystals. Jian for his part looks back helplessly. "Don't know, but She said we were to protect them with our lives. I am happy to give the duty to Her daughter."
Skye Johnson	Skye gives a slow nod, fingering the things again, before putting them back into the pouch. "I was wondering if maybe, maybe if you might go find some incense?" She looks a little sheepish as she says it. "I thought maybe I'd pull the weeds and that here. Spend a bit of time alone?" And if they got the hint.. and the incense, she'd light a stick or two - not out of any sense of duty of piety, but maybe a "I made it" to the universe. It wasn't likely she'd get back here again. It would also suffice as a goodbye.
Clint Barton	Jian looks to Fan who translates the finer points of the request and he beams as understanding takes hold. "Yes, I have." Clint steps forward, bending to kiss Skye on the cheek. "If it's okay with Jian, Fan and I will be at his place, take all the time you need," he says quietly, a soft smile on his lips. Fan nods behind him before translating the request to Jian.
Skye Johnson	"Totally fine by me," Skye assures Clint, giving him a crooked little smile. She's fine. It's been a lot to process, but she's not about to run for the hills. She's grateful for the time alone, though. Pulling weeds, and clearing debris and rocks away until the shrine is at least a semblance of what it might have been long ago, were it not faded and worn from the elements. Incense lit, she sinks down, and sits with her back against the shrine, the bag in her lap, and just thinks. Or doesn't think. It's all about the same. It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's hello and goodbye all in one. She'd accomplished what she'd set out to do on this visit, and now that she had, it wasn't at all what she thought it would be. She wasn't elated. Or defeated. Not even numb. She just was. Eventually, when it's been enough, she makes her way back to Jian's house. "I'm ready," she tells Clint. "We can go now."
Clint Barton	Clint rises from where he's having tea with Jian and Fan, and pulls Skye into a brief hug. "Yeah?" he asks, quietly, his arms still wrapped around her. "Then, let's go home."