sixthiterationlogs | Aw, fountain, no...

Entry tags:

Aw, fountain, no...

WHO: Clint Barton
WHERE: The (Empty) Fountain
WHEN: September 11th
OPEN TO: Everyone
WARNINGS: Loser Archers Within
STATUS: Open

The thing about being on the Raft is that every day Clint wakes up disoriented for a split second, confused as to why he's not in his bed next to his wife. The sensation is enough to almost make this situation familiar. He goes from wondering where Laura is to wondering why he can't hear Sam, Scott, or Wanda - usually at least one of them is up, moving around enough that he can tell they're alive even if they're not talking. Sometimes they talk - it seems to annoy Ross when he's there and Clint's more than happy to annoy that son of a bitch.

But then it sinks in that he's not in a prison cell. His scrubs are white, not blue, there's no security circuitry on them, he's wearing boots and has a backpack, and is in some deep empty well or cistern of some sort. Yes, unlike most everyone else who's arrived here, Clint does not arrive sopping wet and sputtering from the fountain. It's a nice treat, not that he's aware of his luck, as going from one prison to another is bad enough without having every single item of clothing you own coming out soaked in the process.

But that doesn't change the fact that he's in a strange place, in strange clothes, in a pit he can't get out of on his own. He doesn't even bother to try - he knows his physical skills and they're not bad, but even he can't jump straight up to a ledge 15 feet over his head. "Well this is just great," he mutters to himself, then decides to take stock of what he's got.

He checks his clothes, is glad to see that even though they're white (who wears white scrubs?), the scrubs seem sturdy. A dig through the pack reveals no information to where he is, no means of communication, and no weapons. Disappointing but not particularly surprising. The only explanation he can think of is that Ross has decided to start experimenting with them, and that's what's going on here. Maybe they're free, maybe Thor showed up and had some Asgardian magic transport them somewhere safe, but it doesn't seem very likely to him.

He takes 5 minutes or so to orient himself with his belongings and check to see if he can tell if he's had any sort of injection or something, maybe a subcutaneous tracker, and after that he sets about getting out of the pit. And there's only one way he can do that.

"HELLO?" he shouts up at the top of his lungs. "Anyone up there? Could use a little help!"

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Thor had only managed his ascent from the fountain a few minutes prior and that had been while the water was in the process of draining, not when it had actually drained. Now it seemed the damned thing was bone dry and there was someone else calling to him from the bottom of it. He doubled back and looked down, both relieved and shocked to see it was Clint Barton.

"It seems we've both come here, then, against our will. Are you injured at all?" Thor knew of little he could do for him if he was injured but he thought it was at least prudent to ask before setting himself to helping the other man from the bottom of the fountain.

"I will aid you in any way that I can."

It's... surprisingly reassuring to Clint when he sees the resident god of thunder. This probably means that his idea about Thor being the one to break them out somehow was right. Though that doesn't explain the "against our will" part, so maybe not...

Eh, details, he can figure out details when he's not stuck in a pit.

"Buddy, I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you," Clint says. "I'm fine, just... very much stuck in a pit. Think you can give me a lift?"

Thor laughed a little, glad to see his friend, and gave him a quick nod. "I will see what I can find to help hoist you from the pit. There must be something."

Thor disappeared for a moment before coming back with a plank that appeared to have come from one of the houses. It seemed sturdy enough, even if the house had damage, and hopefully it was long enough to reach down to him. He laid down on his belly and extended the plank, wondering why something so simple felt difficult.

"Can you reach?"

"Should be able to, hang on." The board's still above his head, but it's well within Clint's reach - he has to jump to get up to it, but his hands reach, and he latches on with every bit of grip strength he has, dangling from the board and hoping he doesn't get any splinters.

"Got it, pull me out!"

He's assuming, of course, that Thor can. Good luck, bro.

Cougar leans his forearms over the edge of the fountain and peers downwards. His vision is perfect, of course (you can't have a sniper with poor eyes), and so he sees for the first time that all the water in the fountain appears to have ebbed away. Peering down at the man in white, he then retreats silently without a word.

It's six minutes later that he returns and starts to haul braided sheets from the spare rooms in the Inn over the edge of the fountain, bit by bit as he leverages his foot up against the stones. Sweat drips into his still-healing wound on his neck and his short hair bothers him when it falls in his eyes, but he gives the rope a little wiggle to give the man a sign that he can start holding on and Cougar can start hauling him out, little by little.

Without Jake's strength, this is going to be a task in patience, that's for sure.

Thor pulled with all of his strength to try and haul Clint from the fountain. This shouldn't be a difficult task and, yet, his muscles were tense and his hands were shaking as he tried to get the leverage to help him out. He managed, but only just, and that was concerning.

"Come, you should be able to manage the rest of the way," Thor said, once he'd gotten him up far enough to be able to reach the lip of the fountain. "My strength seems diminished somehow. I don't know what it means."

Clint spots the guy (he, also, is a sniper and has perfect vision of course) and immediately starts talking.

"Hey, bro! Can-- hey! Are you kidding me?!" he shouts, going from hopeful to frustrated when Cougar walks off without saying anything. He spends those six minutes alternately shouting to get someone else's attention and muttering about the asshole who came by to see the guy stuck in the pit and then ran off.

Except then the guy brings back some braided sheets and drops them in. Oh. Getting help.

He grabs the sheet, and while Cougar is hauling, Clint is, thankfully, climbing. Between the two of them, Clint's at the lip of the cistern pretty quickly, heaving himself easily over the ledge. "Thanks, man. Kinda thought I'd be stuck down there for a while."

"Yep. Kinda noticed," he grunts, working to keep his grip. Clint takes a moment and makes a truly American Ninja Warrior-worthy jump from the board to the lip of fountain, swinging his legs up under him and standing as he dusts off his already-dirt-stained white scrubs.

"That's weird, right?" he continues as if he hadn't just climbed out of a pit. "Like, the thing in New Mexico, that wasn't business as usual, right?"

"De nada," is Cougar's response, though he's still also fairly sure that he could have been down there a lot longer if it hadn't been for the available sheets in the Inn. He starts to wind them around his arm, eyeing the man carefully. He looks a little like Wade, enough that Cougar is a bit wary about relations and whether he might be trying to exact some kind of revenge. He doesn't know when the water got out of the fountain, though, which is maybe more of a worry.

He eyes the man and tries to see whether he's wet in any way, but the dryness proves that the fountain has been drained for some time. "I heard you shouting," is his reply. "No faith," he teases with a bit of an amused smirk. "I would not leave you."

"It feels exactly like my time in New Mexico," Thor said, wary about what it might mean. Who could diminish his strength other than someone such as his father? Or Loki? Could his brother be plaguing him still from beyond the grave?

"I'm afraid of what it could mean for us but I think there are other, more pressing concerns to attend to." Where were they? How had they gotten here?

"Hey, I didn't know that then," Clint protests. "Now I do. So I'll remember that if I need your help again."

Sure, he could've been down there longer, but he wasn't, so that's not worth caring about. The important thing is he's no longer in the pit. ...For about ten seconds, the important thing is that he's no longer in the pit, but then the important thing becomes--

"So... who the fuck are you and where the fuck am I?"

She's sitting at the big desk in the Inn's foyer. There's not much else in this space, really, but there is a mug on the desk with some wildflowers in it and the room is clean. (She'd scrubbed the floor recently: swept it with a leafed branch she's using as a broom.)

Kate likes sitting out here, when she has the chance. She tries to welcome any dripping new person who staggers in, and it's a nice spot. Shady on this hot day, with a breeze from the open door, but people aren't as inclined to stop for a long chat as they are in the main room and it doesn't feel like seclusion, like her own bedroom.

Today, though, instead of her normal sewing, Kate's bent over a slate from the school and is trying to do sums. She...

Well.

She's almost glad to see the soaked stranger, really.

"Afternoon, sir!" Kate says, cheerfully, lifting her head and giving the man smile a rueful smile. "Do you.... Well, you lookin' for an explanation for what this place is, or just lookin' for a room?"

Cougar decides he likes him. At least, for now. There's a certain sort of personality he's grown used to dealing with and as abrasive as Roque could be, this man is like a light sprinkle of sunshine on a cloudy day. After all, his head still hasn't been threatened with severing, so it's practically a hippie commune of holding hands and joy. "Cougar," he replies as he perches on the edge of the fountain, glad that the new arrival isn't dripping wet. It's at the cost of aching muscles in Cougar's arms, but at least he doesn't have to wait for him to dry before he can explain things.

"You came out of a fountain," he deadpans, aware that stating the obvious isn't helping matters in any way, but it amuses him a litle. "Welcome to a place that makes no sense," he says with a gesture behind him.

[ooc: Hope this is okay. I figure he has enough people to help him from the fountain.]

As was her custom, Margaery paid a visit to the inn, bearing fruits and mushrooms to place in the kitchen and share with the village. Since the earthquake, she had forced herself to walk through the woods again and recover. While her head wound had begun to heal, her nerves had not. Had she her bearings and confidence, she would have visited the fountain and witnessed Clint's distress.

But the sight of the cracked fountain only reminded her of the horrors of the earthquake. She avoided it as best as she could.

It was at the inn that she spied the new arrival, not sopping wet as the others had been, but no less out of sorts. Who could blame him? It was a rude awakening, wet or dry.

She set down her basket and regarded him with sympathy and curiosity. "Are you all right?" She asked gently.

New arrivals come at random, that much she knows. Random in time, random in who they are, too. Regardless of Peggy and Sam's existence here, Natasha isn't expecting anyone else she knows to show up, because that's how it works. She's already come to terms with it, even as much as she misses certain people (even as much as she hopes they never arrive).

She's coming out of the woods, dressed in her overalls and scrub shirt, hair pulled up with a torn strip of linen to get it up off her neck and out of her face while she pored over the forest, looking for anything she recognizes to be edible. There's not much, at the moment, if only because Natasha's trying not to take more than she can a, carry and b, needs to survive, to make sure they don't run out. Having food is good. Losing their only apparent source of it is not. She almost doesn't see Clint at first, focused on the pillow case she's got filled (this time) with a few mushrooms and some wild mint. She only catches the figure in all white out of the corner of her eye, and she hasn't met anyone with that color yet. The color gets her to look — the person gets her to stop. She knows the back of that head. She'd spent multiple SHIELD briefings throwing things at it.

"Clint!"

Clint thinks that Thor losing his Thorness is pretty pressing, but hey, if he's worried about other stuff that's his business. Clint shifts his bag on his shoulders and starts towards the buildings of town.

"Well. No weapons, no Thor strength," he says as he heads off. "Guess we've gotta ask around and hope for the best!"

Surprisingly unsoaked, actually, thanks to the last earthquake, though he's baffled and his white scrubs are already dirt-smudged. He glances over the room before actually looking at her and smiling as disarmingly as he can.

"I'm not really a 'sir' type of guy, thanks," he says. Please don't call him sir, it really makes him awkward. "But uh... yeah, if you've got any more information than 'well, this pit was full of water yesterday', I'd sure appreciate it."

Clint's at a table currently with his head in his arms, processing things and hating the known universe for all it does to him. So, of course, his only response to Margaery - at least initially - is one hand lifted to flash a thumbs-up, the rest of him not moving.

"Just peachy!" he says, muffled by his arms. "I always love being dragged to weird dimensions without permission, it's great!"

...Right, the likelihood that this girl is in anything other than the same situation is extremely slim, he should be Not A Dick. He lifts his head and smiles ruefully. "But, uh. Thanks for asking."

Yeah, throwing more and more elaborate (and occasionally painful) things at it until they had their seating rearranged like they were naughty grade-school kids.

It was hilarious. Except for the getting hit in the head bit.

But just like Nat knows the back of that head, Clint knows the sound of that voice, and he immediately whips around on hearing it, eyes locking onto Natasha almost immediately and a relieved grin spreading across his face.

"Nat! It is damn good to see you," he declares as he strides towards her. "Tell me you have info about what the hell is going on, please."

He is kindly going to refrain from commenting on the sight of her in overalls.

For now.

Not soaked, no. She blinks, refocuses, resists the urge to rub her eyes. She's normally far, far more sharp-eyed than this, all Miss Sharp Shooting Kate (Ada, to be more accurate, stage names being what they are) and yet... Well. She and Sleep are not so much on speaking terms right now, as can be evidenced by the dark circles under her eyes.

It throws her enough that her initial reply is an almost plaintive. "Um, Mister?" she offers, quietly pleading.

"Well. I do have more information than that, but I'm not entirely sure how useful it might... be. I'm Miss Kate Kelly, by the way. And yourself?"

"Mister's better," Clint admits, and guesses from that and her own introduction she's a bit more formal than he's used to. Eh, no skin off his teeth - it's easy enough to be polite to a young woman.

"I'm Clint Barton," he says, stepping forward and offering his hand. "Nice to meet you, Miss Kate, and honestly I'd appreciate any info you've got."

"You are incredibly positive about this turn of events," Thor said, looking at Clint carefully. He had none of the sense about him that he'd had when possessed by Loki. Hmm. Perhaps he was simply trying to make the best of it in spite of circumstances. That was something that Thor could respect.

"I am less so. I think that we need to find a place to secure for operations and work on a way to leave this place sooner rather than later. I don't like the feel of it."

She wanted to place her hand on his shoulder in comfort, but stayed that impulse, knowing better than to approach someone when their nerves were already frayed. He was not in good humor, though again, no one could blame him for that. Their means of arrival was far from pleasant and, from what she heard, the fountain was empty.

Margaery offered a smile in return when he looked at her. There was no judgement in her gaze. If he felt better lashing out, she'd accept it.

"Are you hurt?" She asked him. "The fountain is normally filled with water, but I'm not certain how it is for new arrivals now that it isn't."

He probably isn't going to like what she has to say — that much she knows. She's also a little surprised at his warmth towards her, but, then again, maybe he doesn't know. Or maybe, like Sam before him, he's already (somewhat) forgiven her.

Either way, it's a relief, even as she already regrets his presence here, away from his family again. The things Natasha wants the most for the people around her are the things she, herself, cannot have. Her heart aches for Clint. He deserves to be at home, with his family. Not here, in god knows where.

"I don't. Not really." She sighs, squints up at the sun overhead.

"Just that we're here, there's allegedly no way out, and that a series of increasingly inconvenient things keep happening."

"Mr Barton," she says, leaning forwards slightly and shaking his hand. Her hand is small, but strong, a bit rough from manual labour. The pale skin is covered in the kind of scratches that scream 'new kitten owner'. "Nice to meet you, too, even under such tryin' circumstances."

Any information?

Well, her full mouth cants at that, ruefully.

"Unfortunately, you've joined a group of people from wildly different places and times, who've all been kidnapped and placed in this canyon," she starts off. "So far, we can't find a way out, although we've been surveyin' the area. There's a map in the main room," and she tilts her head in that direction.

"Our captors like to put us in the type of outfits that you're wearin' - mine are red, but I made these. They also like to give us gifts, in boxes with our full name on 'em. But we ain't seen hair or hide of said captors.

Do you remember anythin'? From before you woke up in the fountain?"

"Oh, no, I'm very sure we're completely screwed," Clint says, brightly. "I'm just trying to be upbeat about it so I don't brood. I'm not great at brooding."

Which isn't entirely true, but he prefers not to. It just gets into a cycle of brooding and pessimism and he gets really really unhappy and pretty useless all told.

"Clint," is the response. He doesn't offer a hand to shake, mostly 'cause he's looking around like he's trying to figure out where he is. Which he knows is probably pointless, but it's habit.

He snorts a little at Cougar's deadpan, then sighs. "A place that makes no sense. Ain't that just par for my life right now." He rolls his shoulders, then turns back to Cougar. "Aside from making no sense, is there anything we know about it? How we got here, who brought us here, why we're here?"

"Brooding typically accomplishes very little," Thor agreed. He had never been prone to it, leading more to action himself, and he felt that he was better for it. The last time he'd gotten moody and pensive had been when he was trapped on Midgard in a situation very near to this; he would learn from that mistake.

"It's action we'll need but which action that is remains to be seen. I will have to think on this."

Cougar's look gets increasingly more even as he raises a brow to indicate that if he had those kinds of answers, maybe he wouldn't even be here anymore. He does have some information he can share, though, but it's going to make him sound crazy. "We come through the fountain, all of us," he says. "Windstorm, when I came."

It would be easier in Spanish, but the man doesn't look like he'll understand as well in Cougar's first language. "No clue why we're here or who brought us. Can't find an escape, so instead, we try and survive." He's doing a fairly decent job, he thinks. He's still living and breathing, after all.

Clint presses his lips together and rubs his face. Dimension hopping. Time travel. It's not like it's any more ridiculous than Thor's rainbow bridge wormhole or Wanda's... everything. But it's still crazy and weird and a little unsettling.

"Great," he says, the soft word rumbling slightly deep in his chest. He sighs, then forces a smile for Kate. "Thanks for the info, Miss Kate. If you folks don't know anything else about who brought us here, that's hardly your fault."

Probably. He hopes. "I was sleepin', honestly. Kind of startled me to wake up somewhere i didn't fall asleep."

Clint's shoulders droop, just slightly, and he rubs a hand over his head, making his hair stick up a bit. "Fuck. If that's all you know, we're probably pretty screwed."

Right. Okay. Time travel, dimension hopping, and not even Nat has any more information than Kate gave him. They're completely fucked.

"Well... could be worse," he says, smiling crookedly "'Least there are buildings to stay in."

Clint was raised better than that. ...Okay, that's not true, his dad was an abusive drunken prick and Clint was not raised to be anything other than Silent and Not Causing Trouble. But he believes in being better than that. He's not going to lash out at this young lady if he can help it.

"Woke up in the bottom, had to shout until someone came to help me out," he says. "I'm fine, just frustrated. Not your fault."

He holds his hand out, as polite as his mother ever taught him to be. "Clint Barton. I'd say it's nice to meet you, but under the circumstances..."

Damn. "Was kinda afraid of that," he says, and rubs a hand over his face. Okay, let's see, if he can't get answers to those things, what can he ask?

"How many people are here, do you know?"

He could ask about resources and how long people have been here, but his Spanish is pretty rusty and he can't speak Portuguese worth shit, and those are the most likely languages he thinks this guy speaks.

"You and me both, big guy," Clint says, mostly to himself.

Right. They need some sort of plan, even if it's super short-term.

"We should probably figure out who lives here and if they got here like we did or not," he says. It's not the best plan but it's... a plan, at least.

"Thirty, including you." It might be strange that Cougar is keeping a population count and spying on his neighbours so invasively, but he feels very strongly that if people want to stay alive, they need a better rationing and breeding system, which means knowing not only how many people are around, but their eating habits and how often they dine.

"Small community," he says. "Not much food, so is good that way."

"I haven't really spoken to many people here," Thor agreed. "If each arrived in the same way, we must all have something in common. We must be some sort of threat to be contained."

Thor could think of many who might deem him a threat, or Barton, but it wasn't so clear when other people were involved.

Her face shows mingled sympathy and disappointment. Disappointment that he doesn't remember, that they made it so he can't, but clear, clear sympathy because she woke up here, too.

Although in her case, she'd woken up under water.

"That's happened to a few of us here," she says, quietly, and sighs. "Botheration. Well, now you're here...

Midday dinners are provided here, every day. We rely on volunteers to help out with the gatherin' of everythin', and the cookin' and cleanin'. You can stay here at the Inn if you want, or you can take one of the empty houses out there. Just... Just be careful of the ones near the river. They tend to flood. We've set up a field behind the town hall, tryin' to grow some things so we don't clear out the area."

"You were asleep when you were brought here?" She said, not expecting anything less, but desperately hoping that it was otherwise. They were in need of answers, yet it seemed that time and time again, they would get nothing.

"It was lucky that someone passed by. I hope they helped you find a room or a house, something that you can rest and recover in."

She smiled, taking his hand. "I'm Margaery Tyrell and I will say it's nice to meet you regardless of how it came to pass."

"I did only just get here," she points out, matching his crooked smile with one of her own. "The day is young." Well, month-ish, technically, but. She jerks her head towards the inn, starts to turn and move towards it.

"Come on, I'll show you around. I'm staying at the inn, but most of the houses are empty and no one cares if you grab one. Miss Kate runs the inn, and she makes sure everyone's pretty well fed through the day as well, as much as we've been able to scrape together for ourselves."

"You're slipping, then, I remember when you would've had all the details within like thirty seconds of showing up!" His shit-eating grin is a dead giveaway that he's teasing, if the words themselves weren't already.

Falling into step next to Nat is the most natural thing. "Yeah, I met her. Nice kid, little formal, though. You know what's up with that? I thought Aussies were laid back."

"She's from the 1800s or so," she responds as he falls into step next to her. Their body language and ease around one another — it's like they hadn't just tried to kick one another's asses on the tarmac of the Berlin airport. But a fight between the two of them would have to be a lot worse than that, she supposes, to break them up. They've been through too much together for that.

"There aren't many details to know," she continues, lifting her shoulder in a shrug. "The houses and everything were here when the first of us arrived, Sam among them. He says there was nothing in the houses but the linen and furniture — no personal items, no books, no newspapers. So whatever there is to know either was never here in the first place, or was taken when whoever lived here left."

Clint grunts, in a way that Nat should recognize as an acknowledgement and an acceptance. It's a sound that means "that makes sense" or "yeah okay", to someone who speaks Clint fluently. Like she does. Which is why the fight in Berlin has so little bearing on how he interacts with her - they know each other. She knows him. Sure, they ended up on different sides of this fight, for now, but that's kind of inconsequential, at least as far as Clint's concerned. In the end, they always have each others' backs.

"So, no sign of whoever brought us here, no sign of whoever lived here before us, nothing like that." He exhales deeply. It's more a statement than a question. "That doesn't really bode well, does it?"

"Not really, no," Natasha replies with a shake of her head and a small sigh.

"And no way out either," she continues, glancing back at the retreating fountain. "At least, not that I can see now that it's dry. Any memory of getting thrown in there in the first place?"

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Aw, fountain, no...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

at the Inn

no subject

At the inn

no subject

no subject

no subject

absolutely fine, luv!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject