ax_main | Wanda and Clint

Things get revealed at the New Years Eve party, and Wanda and Clint have a big fight, ending with a small scene at midnight near the buffet table.

Clint hadn't really wanted to do the whole New Year's party thing, but he'd totally screwed Halloween up, and he knew that Wanda would be expecting the invite, so he'd told Caleb and Cal he'd meet up with them later, then had gotten dressed up in his best clothes - jeans without holes, a purple t-shirt, and a khaki blazer - and had arranged for a portal for Wanda to the party. The problem was - he'd noticed her distracted more than once since she'd gotten there, her gaze straying toward Scott and Jean, and he wasn't exactly sure what to make of it.

Finally, he'd made an excuse to go get them drinks so he could get a good look, and yeah, she was definitely watching them. As he got back, he nudged her shoulder. "So, what's the deal there?"

"What's the deal, where?" Wanda replied defensively, dragging her attention away from Scott and Jean (and what the fuck was the matter with her anyway, she was acting like a creepy stalker) and back to Clint. Who, much to her surprise, had actually invited her to the party - and after having complained about him not having taken her to the one at Halloween, she couldn't figure out a good reason to turn him down.

So she'd dressed up in a pair of tight black jeans, her favorite boots, and a new sparkly red top she knew Jean would've complimented if she'd been able to convince herself to go talk to her, and she'd come. Now if she could just manage to stop acting like an idiot and enjoy it.

"You," Clint pointed out with one hand still holding her cup of punch. "And the power couple over there. I don't have the eyes that I used to, but even I can see that you've been staring at them since you got here."

"It's nothing." Because it was nothing, right? Nothing important, anyway. Just a set of fucked up, not hers memories. She held out her hand for her cup.

"It's kind of not," Clint pointed out, passing the cup to her. Thing was, he knew that kind of look (from experience), and sure, he'd always known about her friendship with Scott, but he'd never really thought about it as more than that.

Wanda rolled her eyes. "We had a thing when the world went sideways," she admitted, hoping if she told him that much he'd let it drop. "Still trying to wrap my head around it."

Clint slowly shifted his gaze toward Scott. "A thing? What kind of thing?"

"The kind of thing that makes everything seriously weird afterwards, " she replied, giving him a pointed look to drop it. "What were you up to there, anyway?"

"Not having sex with Summers, for one," Clint grumbled softly, before taking a deep drink of the punch. He hoped it had alcohol in it. Why had he not asked her about the Yorkland thing anyway? He'd known all of the Brotherhood would have gotten caught up in it, even if he'd never seen her there.

Wanda opened her mouth to ask him who he had been having sex with When a girl in a tight purple dress stepped up. And grinned as she eyed him appraisingly, in a manner that made Wanda's eyebrows rise. "Hey, Clint, right? I'm Lu. I've been meaning to check in after, yknow, everything."

"Guess that answers my question," Wanda observed drily.

"Hey, we did not -" Clint started, then backtracked. Did they? Things were kind of fuzzy about what their relationship had been before she'd had a freaking dragon magic him into a new existence. "I don't think we did anyway."

He looked up at look, frowning. "Did we?"

"Well, I'd assumed we had?" Lu admitted, then shrugged and offered a crooked grin. "Could be wrong, though. Everything's fuzzy before the part where I went to see the dragon."

"Sounds like that's something you two should sort out." And yeah, okay, she did sound snarky. It was called for. "You have fun with that." She gave Clint a very fake smile that if he was smart he'd recognize as her being very unimpressed, and turned to go.

"Hey, now wait a second," Clint scowled. Then he turned to Lu. "Uh, can we talk about you wishing me into another life some other time?"

"Umm, yeah. Just make sure it's me, okay? Pretty sure the rest of me doesn't know, and I really don't want to hear the lecture," Lu requested.

Wanda rolled her eyes and just kept walking.

Clint took a moment to understand that in his own head, then nodded distractedly before pacing after Wanda. "Hey, you do not get to judge me when you've been staring at Summers all night."

"At least I know whether or not I had sex with him," she pointed out. "And he didn't pop over to discuss it."

"So you did have sex with him," Clint reasoned, glancing over at Scott with a frown.

"Pretty sure I more or less already admitted that," Wanda observed. "Whatever. We were partners there. Here we're just friends. End of story."

"And that's all you ever want to be," Clint remarked sarcastically. Clearly, she was still harboring something, whereas him and Lu... it seemed like a weird girlfriend he'd had in another life. Not that she wasn't hot. Because she was. But he wasn't staring at her every three seconds either.

"There's nothing wrong with being friends," Wanda snapped. "It's not like I have a shitload of those, or that I'm joined at the hip to the ones I've got." And yeah, that was a dig on him and Cal. She wasn't forgetting about how their rooftop barbecue plans got cancelled because poor Cal was having issues, thank you very much.

"Hey, we are not joined at the hip," Clint growled. She was getting dangerously close to talking shit about Cal, and every fiber of his being started tense in response.

"Oh please, you two are worse than Lance and Pietro ever...were..." Wanda blinked. Because there'd been a reason why Pietro and Lance had hung out as much as they had. And while she'd never thought of Clint and Cal in that context...it would make a hell of a lot of sense, wouldn't it?

Clint froze, deer in the headlights, his spine ram-rod straight.

"Seriously? Y'know, it seems like this is something you could've mentioned," Wanda pointed out. Her head felt a little fuzzy, and she was pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with the punch. "If you're gonna use me as a beard, I'd at least like to be in on it."

Clint couldn't breathe. He felt himself starting to get tight in the chest and he shoved it away. He couldn't freak out. Not right now. Not in the middle of everyone. "It's not like that," he told her in a rush. "Cal likes girls. I like...I like a lot of things. I like you."

Wanda fixed him with a look. In a way, she didn't really doubt that - she was pretty sure she'd have picked up on all of this a lot sooner if he hadn't actually liked her. Except...

"Let me ask you something. If Cal came out tomorrow, how long would it take you to tell me it was over? Or would you just completely forget I exist like you did when he asked you to the Halloween party?"

Clint just stared at her. "He didn't ask me to the party..."

"Pretty sure that answers my question," Wanda pointed out.

"Wanda.." Clint managed to set his cup down on the edge of the buffet table. At least they were out of the middle of the crowd now. "You don't know what he's been through. I'd never forget you exist..."

Yeah, that definitely answered her, didn't it? A hex slipped unbidden from Wanda's fingers, and the punch in Clint's cup began to spiral - then spirted out of the cup to blast him square in the face.

On a different day,under different circumstances, Wanda would have apologized. Today? "Go ahead and forget," she suggested. "I'll get Billy to send me home." It wasn't like there was a single member of the Brotherhood who hadn't been through hell at one time or another, who didn't have their own story. She wasn't interested in hearing Cal's.

Punch soaked his face and hair, slipping down the neck of his shirt, and Clint found his fingers clenching in anger. The quick reply came to his lips before he could stop himself. "Yeah? And what do you want me to tell Scott?"

Yeah, that was below the belt. Wanda's fingers moved, and the punch bowl floated up from the table, moved until it was directly over Clint's head, and upturned and dumped its contents over his head.

Clint froze again, this time from the liquid dousing him and the look in Wanda's eyes. He didn't know what to say, but he couldn't stay in the gym with all those people. He needed air. Part of him wanted to run. Instead, he made himself turn and start walking away toward the exit, ignoring the shouts and revelry of 'Happy New Year!' being shouted around him.