Jolie Did It Better

October 31, 2018:

Natasha and Clint banter about how great each of them are and completely disagree with each other about how great the other one is.

Atheletics - Triskelion

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

Most of SHIELD knows this part of the range is closed this time of the evening. It's during the shift change and the dinner hour, when most of the agents are either heading off duty or getting some grub. So it grants the archer in his SHIELD issue sweats some time for reflection, training, and exercise. Though he does try to carry it off as if everything he does doesn't take any effort, that it all just comes to him naturally and he barely has to work on it. But only a handful of people know the exact reason as to the why this area of the gym is closed. It's closed… because Clint Barton is trying to keep himself a cut above.
It's hard to keep up with a team of super powered beings who are marvels of magic and science. People who it really does come naturally and easily to. Clint, however, he has to be the man who never misses. Has to be Johnny on the Spot no matter what happens. Because if he's not, then what is he? Just some guy with an archaic weapon. That's what.
Well ok, he'd still be a pretty impressive spy. And handsome, there's that super handsome. Also he has a fine singing voice to be fair.
But those don't count for much when the team stands up to alien aggression. So the evening hour finds him in that gymnasium. The door's closed with a coded sequence to keep people out. Outside it just states on the data relay that it's closed for routine maintenance. Inside, Clint Barton is holding himself aloft on the parallel bars, sweat beading on his brow as he tries to hold himself perfectly still with his legs pointing forwards and his arms trembling, maintaining and working that core strength that is so often neglected for archers and athletes everywhere.
For a moment he shoots a glance at the clock on the wall, still scowling to himself as he wishes he could wipe his brow, but no… still has to hold that posture for a few minutes more.

Well its supposed to be the best holiday season of the year, but its been all too real this year with demonic threats making New York City into a hub of true terror for people, rather than one of faux-terror. Its a shame because if Natasha Romanoff were to pick a holiday she liked best, it'd be this one. But oh well, thats life, there'll be another one next year… assuming they keep this crazy world together that long.

The super secure doorway to Clint's private training montage session? Yeah its opened like it were the doorway to an open deli.

Natasha walks right on inside and she lets the door sweep shut behind her with little more than the whisper of air and the click of its mechanisms. She puts her hands inside of her dark brown leather slim-fit jacket and she just walks over to where she sees the man doing his exercises. As she approaches him she gets one of those half-cocked smirks that he'd know means she's in a fair (if not positive) mood.

She stares at him while he does his exercises and then finally speaks up. "We need to get you some of that super soldier serum stuff." She says, oddly enough. "I'm not like this whole… 'mid life crisis' thing I'm sensing from you these days." And she's off to the races with teasing him!

"Mid-life crisis?" Hawkeye's voice lifts an octave or two even as he winces and then tenses his legs again to try and keep them in that posture, his forearms tenses rather tightly as he holds onto those bars and grits his teeth. "Lady, I'll have you know I'm in my prime." He takes a split second to shoot her a smirk and a chuff of exhalation that might be a hint of a laugh, but that causes him to lose his grip slightly and his shoulders bunch as he tries to regain it, twisting his weight left and right before righting his legs.
"Hey, that reminds me. /huff/." He scrunches up one eye and peers at her sidelong. "I've a few ideas for a costume if they intend to actually do that party thing this year. Any word on that?" Since really, it would be bad taste to probably have a halloween to do what with the demons and all making it more real than some.
There's a faint beeping coming from his pile of clothe and gym bag across the way, just a trio of beeps and he then breathes an audible sigh of relief as he drops that hold on the bars, then scissors his legs smoothly until he twists and /forces/ himself up into a handstand that might be impressive if it didn't cause his shirt and sweat shirt to fwoomf down into his face and block his vision. Nice abs though.

Natasha slightly tilts her head like a curious robot might do when she sees him start to show signs of a little trouble but then she just smirks some more and starts to walk over toward where she hears the beeping amongst all of his stuff. She starts to rummage around in his belongings until she can find the source of it.

"Its canceled." She says with a monotone pitch to her own voice, her American accent almost always in use these days… event Clint has likely rarely ever heard her talk with a Russian accent that she natively speaks. "Though some of the junior agents are claiming they're going to have a Costume Party sometime before Thanksgiving, assuming this… bullshit is even wrapped up by then."

Natasha moves to takes a seat as she gathers up the device that was beeping and she glances up at him to see him covered by his own shirt now. "I swear, if this your last few seconds on Earth, I'm going to find a scientist to re-animate you just so I can punch you for the death you're about to bring onto yourself."

Under the folds of fabric she'll hear him, "You even dream of punching me… something something. I forgot how that movie went." He holds himself there balanced, even as Natasha plays with his data augmented cellphone, finding the apparent schedule for his routine that is counting down now a few more seconds for him to complete task, 'Elevated Handstand' which ticks down and then beeps again.
Once that's done he /drops/ from the bars and lands to the side of them with a whumpf, arms extended forwards as he bends his knees to support his fall, then straightens up. "I had this great idea for a costume though." He starts to walk towards her even as he grabs his towel off the pads on the ground and wipes at his brow. "Was going to get a bright red Adidas track suit, put on a crazy Ronald McDonald wig, and walk around with this really thick Russian accent claiming to be this super spy or something."
His lips twist into a smirk, "I think it'll go over well, you? Think it's a good idea?"

Natasha just smirks at his punching reference. "I'm not going to be the cause of your demise. Not today anyway." She responds to that while she stares at his exercise routine timer countdown to the last moment then she sets it back down beside his towel as he lands and starts to walk toward the stool she's seated on beside his stuff.

Her green eyes are on his own as she listens to his rundown of his costume suggestion and she shows no outward emotional reaction to it. Then she just starts to nod her head several small drawn-out times. "Absolutely you should do that." She tells him. "Ronald 'Borat' McDonald is assuredly the route to go with when one wishes to aspire toward super spy levels of secret notoriety." She says all of this with a very dry tone and then smirks at the man as she leans back on the tall chair and puts her hands back into her jacket pockets.

After a second of thought she has an expression cross her face that could only be described as intense ponderment. "Maybe I will be your demise today after all…"

For a brief moment that grin of his holds real affection, but it's crushed by the need to show an edged smirk in the very next instant. "Sure sure. Get in line." He reaches over his back and grabs handfuls of his sweat shirt then drags it up and over, balling it up and tossing it aside and leaving him with just the military issue t-shirt with that blue SHIELD logo over the grey. He steps to the side and takes up an old bow, not his high tech one that he uses when working, but an older wooden one with a quiver of about a dozen arrows.
"C'mon, let's take a walk. You can tell me what's been going on while I shoot." That said he tosses a nod in the direction of the rifle range, or rather the corner of it that he uses with the targets already set up. As he moves he shoulders the quiver into place and tests the bowstring with a fingertip. "Did you figure out a costume idea? What was it you went as last year? I forget."

Natasha removes herself from the chair as he picks up his stuff and prepares to move on to the range. She just stands out of the way with her hands in her pockets and her eyes tracking what he's doing before she'll move with him to prepare to fire his little bow.

"Last year I was on assignment in Paris." She corrects him. "Unless you count my alias of 'Genevive Axis' as a Halloween costume." She pauses again then and glares preemptively at him. "And no 'Ass' jokes." She remembered many of those around here, since Axis in French is spelled 'Asse' in English.

The real redheaded super spy takes up a position alongside the private archery range and she looks down range… then back up and over to him. "You know we can have some high powered rifles here for you to shoot in a matter of minutes." She offers, yet again.

"Still, any ideas for this year?" He asks her as he runs a calloused hand along the bowstring, gauging the tension with a pluck and then turning the bow sideways and scrunching one eye up as if he were firing from the hip. Which he isn't. He reaches a hand back for the fletching of one of the arrows and draws it cleanly, nocking it and holding both the bow and the arrow with one hand as he turns to her.
He pushes past his own question to instead answer her intimated one. "You know as well as I that a rifle doesn't have one tenth the soul of this old sled." Meaning the bow of course. "Asides," He brings the bow up and takes aim, one eye closed for an instant as he draws back arms bunching… and then releases as he gestures slightly to the side.
"Let me know when you can finesse a bullet with enough english to do that." He's looking at her even as he releases and the arrow fires clean, down the way and /twissssts/ until it thunks straight into the bullseye, but more like a major league curve ball.
And there's that smug look again in his eyes, as if he proved the point to Natasha entirely.

Natasha settles into a lean against a table across from where he's setting up his equipment and preparing for his first shot. She just smirks at what he's saying and then watches him as he moves to line up for the shot. "I hadn't put much thought into it, really. Though I did bust some punk kid on my way in here the other day who was trying to loot a television out of a retirement center. He had an eyepatch on… and it turned out he had two perfectly fine eyes. Said he wore it to send a message…"

She shakes her head at this concept then. "I was considering a black sweater and a trenchcoat, Maybe get an afro wig and… you think I'd get fired for an afro wig? Is that going too far?" Obviously she's talking about going as a version of Nick Fury. "I was thinking 'black face' makeup would totally be too far, but maybe the wig is too. Its hard to tell what will upset people these days."

His shot is observed and she can't deny the skill with the bow that the man has, she's decent with a bow herself but he's on another level above her with it even. She's just… trained in them, but not master-classed in them. "Angelina Jolie might have words with you on this subject." She mutters.

A snort is given back to her and he says, "Oh nah, that's not too far. Not at all. Just be sure to remember me in your will before the party." He touches a fingertip to his brow and then points at her as if saluting her fine choice to sacrifice her life on the altar of an enraged Nick Fury. And rightly so. But he takes aim again, turning his back upon her and drawing the bowstring with a subtle creak coming from the old wood. He sights down the shaft of the arrow and then lets fly, reaching back even before hearing the impact of that shot.
"Did you hear there were talks about them having Angelina Jolie play you in the movie of our crazy lives and all that?" He glances over his shoulder, "I couldn't see it, to be fair." He says as he takes another bead, fires with a /fwiff/ of arrowshot.
"I mean, for one, she's way too tall." He doesn't even look back at her as he says that, "And for another, way too attractive. Too noticeable, stands out in a crowd. Wouldn't make a good superspy at all." His lip twists as he perhaps makes sure she's not drawing her gun on the metal brace on his wrist, but continues to fire a nice tight grouping of arrows.

Natasha is just smirking at the Fury costume talk. "I don't know… I think there's a good sense of humor behind all of that black leather and bravado." She states while slightly shaking her head left to right, her eyes on the archer's shooting form and then following the arrows as they go.

The rest of what he says though gets her to lean forward while he's taking aim and then she attaches a low-yield 'Widow Bite' against the fletching of the bundle of arrows he's pulling from. Enough electricity to shock him should he bump his fingers against it while reaching for another projectile.

When he looks back though toa check on her she's just sitting on the edge of the table with her right hand on the top of her thigh and the left inside her jacket. "I met her once." She says then about Jolie. "At a party in L.A. I was posing as an agent for a man who thought he was an assassination target… This was quite awhile ago. You're right though, she is too tall and too pretty to be me." She says it in a way that almost makes her sound 'sad' about it too!

/YOW!/ Clint shakes his hand and waggles it, sucking on a fingertip as he crinkles his nose at her, "Watch it, lady." But there's no malice there, he knows he earned that one. But he finishes the draw, nock, and shoot as he keeps his back to her for a little bit more. It's only once he's made a nice clean crossing X-mark on the target that he seems settled on holding off on the target practice.

Turning around to look at her he rests the bow upon the ground, leaning against it with both hands and almost looking like that age old image of Errol Flynn welcoming the viewer to Sherwood. His smile is tinged with curiousity as he asks her, "Oh yeah? What's she like?" Even as she regales him a bit about her, about the party, about the bodyguard part.
But it's when she offers that touch of self-deprecation that she'll see those subtle micro-tells that means he feels just a smidge bad with what she says.
"C'mon, Nat." His smile is open, easily given. "Alright so not much you can do about the height thing. " He perhaps pantomimes ducking a little, perhaps if she makes some movement to zap him again. But he presses on, "But to be fair and not giving you grief, you clean up amazingly when you want to." He flares his hand to the side, eyes shifting away as if recalling one of those times then looking back at her. "You have this casual beauty when you want. As if you don't care at all and it helps you look all the better. Probably a confidence thing." Now whether he means confidence in her self-belief… or confidence as in conning people, hard to tell. But he doesn't explain.

Natasha has the Widow Bite loader-device in her hand and it also functions as a charger for them, but a new feature that is still being tested is the remote return feature. The Widow Bites are becoming 'drones' of their own and after she zaps him she just smirks at him and listens to the rest of what he says. "She's nuts." Natasha replies about Jolie. "Like all the A-listers in Hollywood." With a sigh she starts to stand up then. "But, at least she's not a Scientologist, right?"

She begins to turn around while he says the rest of that and thats when she triggers the drone feature on the electricity shocker, it detaches from the arrows and launches up into the air and SIZZLES as it dangerously passes close to Clint's right ear. Natasha is extremely confident in her looks and wouldn't change a thing, even her height.

"I've recorded everything you just said." She teases him (or is it?!). "And I'll wait for the most personally beneficial moment to replay it to those who happen to be around to hear your true feelings toward me, Errol." She turns to starts to make her exit. "Its 'spooky' pizza night in the mess hall. You in? Brave enough to find out what the 'spooky' part is?"

A snort comes from him though he doesn't seem to be heading after her. Instead a few words will waft into the hallway after her, "I'll deny it all to my grave!" Even as she hears the bowstring drawing taut. Then a few more words are sent her way. "Get outta here, Romanoff!"
But then the door closes behind her.

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