Template:Featured Articles/51-2017

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Moment of Awesome - Clint Barton/Hawkeye : Back at the mansion after an absence, Clint finds Quentin Quire on the front steps and is caught up on recent events.


Clint poked Quentin with the stick he'd found on his way back to the mansion after a late walk. He'd only been back from his most recent trek to Siberia for a day or two, so he was still reacclimating to mansion-life, but he was pretty sure it hadn't changed drastically enough to make people-lumps a common occurrence. Still, he was cautious enough about people with powers, especially TKs, thanks to Rachel's demonstration when he'd first gotten to the mansion.

Also, the kid smelled like a distillery, which meant that Clint was being a little warier than he might otherwise have been. Drunken TK reflexes didn't seem like the most fun thing to deal with tonight and he didn't wanna get squished.

He was lucky, then, that Quentin could not have done any more than ineffectually swatted a fly in his current state. It was a titanic effort just to open his eyes. Good thing the sun had not risen yet, because judging by how red his eyes were, he would have been instantly blinded and would have ruined this lovely brand-new body. "Get out of my bedroom," he whined, waving off the intrusion again. "Sleepy time."

"You've moved onto the porch?" Clint asked, smirking a little as he poked at Quentin again. "What aesthetic are you going for now? Hobo chic's kinda old at this point, isn't it? Or are you going for authentic hobo? Cause if that's the case, lemme tell you -- you've nailed it."

That voice. Even though he had not heard it in a long time, Quentin surely could not forget it. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes and forced himself to focus on the source. "Oh wow, it's the white knight. You're not dead. Hey, me neither! We should drink to that!"

"I think your kidneys wouldn't thank me," Clint said, finally setting the stick aside and moving closer to Quentin. "What brought on the drink-a-thon?" Last time, it'd been pretty damn serious. He wasn't sure he was out of his science-brain enough to deal with that kind of thing at the moment, but given there weren't any other options, he'd do his best.

"Didn't you hear?" Quentin sat up, smirking when he saw his head was level with Clint's crotch. That was a pleasant thing to wake up to. "I killed myself. Gun to my head. Boom! 'Cept it was actually quiet more. More like." He gestured wildly with his hands and nearly fell over. "It was that or kill Jean Grey, and people like her more. Also the brain monster would've just killed her, too, and then everyone else. You woulda come back to a house full of corpses. So you're welcome. Boom!"

Clint didn't reply for several long moments. He chose to sit down on the steps near Quentin and lean back. Maybe he should've told somebody official about Quentin's 'if I have to die to protect some other mutant' speech that one time... he'd thought he'd addressed it, though, by pointing out that one dead mutant amongst many others wouldn't make a difference the way the kid seemed to want it to.

This, though... this was a different beast entirely.

"Dude," Clint finally said, not entirely sure what else he could say in that moment. He'd always known he might have to make the sacrificial play at some point in his life -- he'd do it for Ev or Tasha or Matt in a heartbeat, and there were other people here at the mansion he'd started to get attached to enough to consider it -- but he'd never been faced with a situation where there was literally no other choice.

"DQ, man. That's heavy. Do you like... I don't know, do you need a hug?" Had anybody been checking up on the kid? They'd better have been fucking checking up on him. Goddammit. He left for a few months and this is the kind of shit he comes back to? What the hell?

That was an offer Clint would instantly regret. Freed from what little inhibitions he normally carried, Quentin did the only thing he knew for finding comfort in a cold, lonely, violent world: like a striking viper, he was on top of Clint, lips pressed against his, one hand on the back of the archer's neck to keep him close while the other fumbled to unbuckle his belt.

Clint held perfectly still, neither responding nor attempting to immediately push Quentin off of his lap. Instead, he pressed his lips together and pulled his head backward, away from the kid. Raising his hands, he gripped the sides of Quentin's face between his hands and raised his eyebrows. "Okay, so that was pretty bold. Not gonna lie, that wasn't what I was expecting. You're cute, but you're definitely outside the range of acceptable hookup ages for me, so. No more kissing, DQ. Let's get some water into you so your hangover's not as terrible as I suspect it'll be otherwise. And then we can talk about what your definition of 'a hug' is."