Clint and Cal - Backdated to late March

[ax_mimic]

Clint and Cal escape outside with the dogs a little while after meeting Nott. They debrief about recent events and revelations. (No I totally didn't forget this at the bottom of my inbox why do you ask.)


It was kind of a relief when it was time to take the dogs out. As much as Clint liked meeting Caleb's friend, things had been weird the past few days, and getting out...getting a breath of fresh air and just...walking? It was nice. Especially when it was with Cal.

Cal was equally thankful for getting a breath of fresh air. Part of him wanted to run with the dogs, but in the end, he decided to stick to being human, and walking beside Clint as they watched the dogs play together. He was happy to stay silent for a long while, but eventually, he glanced at Clint and asked, "So, what do you think?" About... well, any of it. Clint could take his pick.

Clint glanced over at him and took a deep breath. "Well, I like her. And I'm glad Caleb's got her back. The rest..." Well, what the fuck was he supposed to think? Caleb had murdered his parents, and was clearly traumatized and guilt-ridden over it.

Cal let Clint trail off without prodding. Instead, he said, "I'm going to..." Once he said it, he couldn't take it back. "I'm going to ask Betsy to train me. So I'm ready for the bastard, next time." He had no idea if she would agree, of course. He'd been more or less avoiding her since Yorkland, for one thing.

"Oh." Oh right, Betsy. With everything going on, Clint had totally forgotten about the thing with Cal and Betsy. "Uh. Well, that's good, right? You're talking about the telepathy stuff, yeah?"

"Yeah," Cal confirmed with a nod. "I mean, I don't know if she'll agree, but it won't hurt to ask." Whatever it took, he wanted to be able to help Caleb.

"Why wouldn't she agree? Are things still weird between you two?" Clint asked curiously.

"We haven't been hanging out," Cal replied, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Not since... So, yeah, I don't know. We'll see." Even without that, Cal couldn't be sure she would agree to help make him even more dangerous than he already was.

Clint wasn't sure what to say to that, or even how to feel about it. Betsy was hot, and if they got together, he'd be happy for his friend. For fuck's sake, Cal deserved it. "She'll help you," he finally decided. "She wants to keep people safe here just as much as we do."

"We'll see," Cal repeated lamely, unsure what else to say. He was still freaking out at the thought of hanging out with Betsy, but this was different. This was about Caleb. He felt like he could handle it. He let the silence stretch for a few seconds, then asked, "So, what you said this morning. That you used to, uh, work for a bad dude?"

He wouldn't push if Clint didn't want to explain. But Cal really wanted to ask.

Oh. Clint had said that, hadn't he? He wasn't sure why. He'd been so close-lipped about Duquesne since he'd gotten to the school. Really, Caleb was the only one who knew anything about it, and even then, it wasn't the entirety of it. But Cal... Cal deserved to know. And Clint trusted that Cal wouldn't judge him for it. He took a deep breath and glanced over at his friend. "I guess I haven't told you much about me."

"You don't have to," Cal said, meeting Clint's gaze for a moment. "But you can, if you want to." He looked away again, so Clint wouldn't feel put on the spot. Fuck knew Cal hadn't told him everything either. They didn't need to, in a very weird way; maybe that was what trust was.

"Nah, truth is, I should have told you a long time ago," Clint said quietly, looking back at the sky on the horizon. "I mean, the whole reason you think I deal with...with any of this well is because I've been dealing with it my whole life."

His whole life. The more Cal found out about his friends, the more woefully inadequate he felt. They had been dealing with so much, for so long, while he was immensely more fucked up over bullshit, by comparison. But this wasn't about him, and he pushed the feeling of inadequacy aside. This was about Clint. "Are you saying - you don't deal with it well?"

Clint was quiet for a moment, the said, "You saw me freak out last night when Caleb was losing it."

Cal winced slightly, guilt tripping his heart. "Sorry. I wasn't at my best either." He wasn't sure how one small freak out meant Clint wasn't dealing well - comparatively speaking, at least - but it was Clint's emotions that mattered here. "What was it that made you freak?"

Clint let out a soft little laugh. "The yelling. Yeah, I know, it's bullshit compared to all the beatings I've gotten but it...it sends me into a panic, especially with the hearing aids amping it all. My uh, my dad, growing up, was an alcoholic. A real bastard. He beat my mom, and me and my brother too. He'd get so...so fucking loud, you know? It was like a roar in your ears."

Cal didn't know, no. Cal had never known anything like that. With his dad, the silences had been worse than any shouting. Still, he nodded, and acknowledged, "Okay." No more shouting. He couldn't believe he'd triggered Clint like that. "I'm sorry."

"You didn't know. Neither did Caleb. Besides, I should be over it by now. My pop's long dead - he and my mom died in a car crash. DUI and all." He paused, glancing at Cal, but Cal had asked, and well, he deserved to know. "What you asked, about me working for a bad dude? That was my foster dad, though he wasn't really a dad at all - more like my boss. Him and his girlfriend ran this stunt show that would travel around to different fairs and shit in the midwest."

"That's where you learned all the circus stuff," Cal said, more to say something than because it mattered to acknowledge it out loud.

"Yeah," Clint acknowledged. "Archery, knife-throwing, swords, horse riding."

Cal nodded. "But it was - more than that?" That, or he didn't understand why Clint had mentioned it when he did, and the way he did. Working for a bad dude.

"At first, it was just the beatings, same as my dad. Barney and I were used to that, and Jacques...he didn't yell like my dad, so it was, better, I guess. But he knew how to make it hurt. Course, then I started healing, and he realized he had a gold mine. So he had me start in shows. Mostly the archery and stuff, but things like sword-swallowing too, because why not? It couldn't kill me. And that was fine, you know? I actually really got into the attention of it all - the crowds and the posters. But then I found out that the money was being laundered for some crime outfit. I don't which one. Drug dealers and human trafficking, that kind of thing," Clint told him.

"He used you for your mutation," Cal acknowledged. Just like the Right. Except it had been for the mob, instead of whatever agenda the Right really had been about. Cal could only imagine the pain of the sword cutting Clint up, and his why not made tears prick at the back of his eyes. But they were going to stay there, where Clint wouldn't see them.

"Yeah," Clint agreed, kicking at the grass. "Until I tried to call the cops. He tried to kill me, but the way I healed...they left me in the emergency room, all broken up, and disappeared. That's where the Right found me."

Cal was silent for a moment, digesting this. "I'm sorry, man."

Clint looked over at him and shrugged. "Like I said, I'm used to it."

"Doesn't make it okay," Cal replied. None of the Right bullshit was okay, and none of the rest of the bullshit Clint or Caleb had lived through either.

"I didn't kill my parents," Clint breathed out. "Though fuck knows I wanted to. But Caleb...he had a loving family. And what that psychopath made him do..."

"All of it is so fucked up," Cal agreed in a breath. He wanted to reach for Clint's hand as they walked, but it wasn't what they did, and it would look like something other than what it was, so he pushed his hands into his pockets.

"Do you think X has him seeing the counselor?" Clint asked quietly, mimicking Cal with the pocket thing without even realizing it.

"I don't know," Cal answered with a shake of his head. "And I can't see myself asking him about it. He already thinks I'm, like, mothering him or whatever."

"Yeah, he shut me down for the longest time. Til this thing with Trent happened anyway. Then it was just..." Explosion.

"He shut you down?" Cal echoed, looking over at Clint.

"No, uh, no I guess I didn't mean it like that," Clint explained. "He'd just get real tense and look nervous, and I'd know when to stop digging, you know?"

Cal relaxed a little, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I didn't push either." He'd never push. He wouldn't want to be pushed either. "I don't know how to make him understand I don't see him... however he thinks I see him."

"Not sure we can, yet. He doesn't trust us that much," Clint told him.

The words echoed just the way Cal felt about all of this, but it still hurt to hear them coming from Clint. It made it real, instead of, maybe, the fruit of Cal's doubts and insecurities. Caleb didn't trust them enough. Cal fell quiet for a moment, nodding agreement. Only once he had managed to swallow past the lump in his throat did he agree out loud, with a quiet, rough, "Yeah." Another swallow and, a little steadier, "How do we change that?"

Clint looked over at the rough sound of Cal's voice, a frown furrowing on his brow. No, he didn't like it, but it didn't choke him up the way it did Cal. Had he...been reading things wrong? Was Cal...interested in Caleb? That...hurt, a little, but he could totally understand it. "Hey, uh, it's okay. He just needs time. It's like... a wounded animal, you know?"

Cal wasn't sure making comparisons like that would help, but he knew what Clint meant. "You think? Because this isn't a new thing, Clint. He was pissed at me for going to get him back from the Right."

"Pretty sure he was pissed because we got too close to his secret," Clint told him, turning toward Cal. "Whatever's going on with him isn't new - but us knowing about it is."

Cal sighed, pulling a hand out of his pocket to rub at his nape. He looked over at Clint. "You really think so?" He wanted to believe it, so badly. For this to be about nothing but Caleb's secret. Could that be true?

Clint shrugged. "I think so, but I could be totally off base. I've never really been that great at reading people."

"I hope you're right on this one," Cal stated quietly.

"Either way...maybe we should hold off on the trips into the city for a bit?" Clint suggested.

Cal frowned slowly, and nodded. "...yeah. Yeah, he doesn't need that right now."

"And you can have time to do the thing with Betsy," Clint pointed out.

"That's probably gonna be a while," Cal said, slowly, as it dawned on him what Clint might have meant. "You plan on going on your own?"

Clint shifted in place. "Well, it's not as if I haven't done it before."

Cal was so on edge that it was impossible to shut down his paranoia. He remembered Clint trying to get out of it, in January. Was this more of the same? Did his friend not want him along, and was he jumping on any excuse to keep Cal away? What did his training with Betsy have to do with it? It wasn't like he was useless in the field without it.

But just because Cal couldn't make that voice shut up didn't mean he had to address what it said. He sighed, shoulders sloping, and turned back towards the dogs to walk after them. "Fine." He couldn't fight with Clint too. "Just be careful, okay?"

Clint smirked softly. "Aren't I always?"

Cal tried to smirk back, but the end result looked more sad than playful, and he let the expression fade after a second. "Think I'm gonna go run with the dogs for a bit."

Clint's expression loosened in response. "Hey, uh. Really?"

Cal shifted self-consciously. "Unless you - want me to stick around. I mean, like this." It wasn't as if he'd be leaving Clint's sight, if he could help it.

Clint did, but he was also starting to realize that maybe he'd said something wrong. And Cal was always happier as a wolf dog anyway. "No, uh. No. Sure, go ahead. They need a run anyway." Cal probably did too.

"You gonna run with us?" Cal asked hopefully, because now he was feeling like shit again. Like he was abandoning Clint.

Clint still had those burns across his side, but he heard the hope in Cal's voice and shrugged. What was a little pain, right? It might even help clear his head. "Sure."

"Cool," Cal said with a small, genuine smile, clapping his hand briefly on Clint's shoulder. Then he shifted into his wolf dog form and padded a circle around Clint, nuzzling at his hand.

Clint crouched in front of him for a moment, scruffing Cal's ears with a smile before wrapping him up in a hug. Fuck everything, he needed it. They could run in a second.

Cal pressed his head against the side of Clint's, surprised by the hug, but absolutely welcoming it. So much so that he didn't want to keep being a dog, just then. I'm gonna shift back, he warned Clint, then did just that, so he could wrap his arms around his friend in return. It was a weird hug, with both of them crouching, but who cared. It was the hug Cal hadn't realized he needed.