Whenever You Call Me, I'll Be There

[lonehawk]

It wasn't like it was early - not quite 10 AM yet, with the entire day to go, but Clint had already mentally checked out. Physically as well. He'd followed his normal routine of rising early to go for a long run like he did almost every day and then having a quick breakfast, but he had nothing else planned for this particular Sunday. He didn't always have plans for his days off - after being in Special Forces, he did cherish those days he truly had off - but he liked to have a few ideas, and nothing had really struck him as something he wanted to do as he ate his cereal and toast. Possibly it was because of a restless the night the night before: the dreams were back, reliving the explosion and the pain that had been two and a half years before, and he always woke with a start from those and slept fitfully after they happened. And since he didn't really have anywhere to be, all of that combined to Clint having passed out on his couch, Andy sprawled across the cushions to his right and with his head in Clint's lap, the television on ESPN with the sound low as he dozed with a light snore.

The sound of a ringing phone startled him but didn't wake him; that was meant for Andy, who popped up to full alert and nudged Clint's shoulder with his nose. The hearing aids sometimes made it hard to distinguish certain sounds, especially electronic ones, and it was only made harder when he was asleep. Clint woke to Andy's nudge and the dog hopped off the couch, walking over to the small table the teletype phone was set up on and looking back at his owner. "All right, all right buddy, I got it," he mumbled a little sleepily, pushing himself to his feet and stretching with a yawn. Raising his hand to scratch at his head under his hair, Clint made his way over to the phone and picked it up in the middle of the fourth ring, swallowing another yawn. "This is Barton, go ahead."

Comments

[watercolorist]

"Art school and the loans that come with it." She watches him as he works. "I've gotten a few commissions, but I'm still working on getting my name out there. I teach a watercolor class at one of the recreation centers three times a week in the meantime. It's not much, but it can be fun."

"You were in the army?" She raises her eyebrows in surprise. She certainly wouldn't have guessed that, but then again, there is a certain straightness in his posture. Or maybe she's just looking for clues that she'd been blind to before. She squints.
"I'm trying to imagine you with a buzz cut."

[lonehawk]

"I wouldn't know about that - I didn't go to college, or even want to. I just joined up as soon as I could." Sure, some of his teachers had made vague motions in the direction of college - his gym teacher had been certain he could've gotten a baseball scholarship if he'd just been willing to be on the team - but Clint had been alone since he was a child, with no parents to take care of him and funnel him money. And for a kid from farm country, where there were already a lot of problems of getting to college even with the full support structure in place, it just wasn't worth it. "It got me out of Iowa and that's what I cared about."

Okay, yeah, there was more to it than that, but he doesn't know Laura Mackay yet, not really, so he's not getting into the nitty gritty details. And he'd liked the army a lot more than he's letting on, but again, not something he's gonna talk about the second time he's face to face with someone. But he doesn't mind her curiosity about his hair, and instead of describing himself - and his former haircut - he pulls a slim billfold out of the back pocket of his jeans and turns to easily toss it to her. Inside there's cash and a couple cards, the most prominent of which is his driver's license in a special plastic-fronted sleeve right up front, and in the picture he is indeed sporting a crew cut that's not quite military length but is definitely a lot closer than the ear-length mop he's got now. He's also scowling like he's going to murder the photographer, which probably isn't a surprise since no one takes a good picture at the DMV, but there's also faded traces of scars of some sort along the left side of his face that are mostly invisible and can really only be seen if she's looking close and obviously can't be blamed on the poor DMV employee.

While she inspects that, Clint pops open his toolbox and pulls out a tape measure. He trusts her, but he wants to make sure she got the right window since she's not really familiar with this kind of handiwork. "I bet you're a pretty good teacher," he comments as he measures the broken window still in the wall, before moving over to the new one to compare. "You talk well." ...Wait. "I mean you speak good, when you speak to other people." Shit. "I mean you pick the words with sense, you know, they string together and it all fits and-" He breaks himself off with a bitten-off word that's very likely a curse, groaning a little and letting his head thunk lightly against the wall, glad he's not facing her because his entire face is brilliant red underneath his tan. "You talk better'n I do, that's for sure."

[watercolorist]

She catches the billfold with a surprised smile. She hadn't expected such easy access to something to complete the picture, but her curiosity isn't going to let her get away without looking. She studies the picture for a moment, before looking back at him and his current mop of hair. She's actually not sure which one she likes better, though she is grateful that at least he's not sporting the same kind of expression. She glances down again, her finger brushing the faint scars in the picture before she looks back at him a second time. This time she can see the tiny hearing aid nestled in his ear. Same side as the scars in the picture. He's not hiding it, but she didn't notice it until now.

She bites her lip to stop from chuckling as he digs himself deeper and deeper. Though she also makes no move to put him out of his misery as he keeps going. Maybe it's the small patch of color she can just make out against the line of his jaw as he faces the wall. Or maybe it's the pained sound of his voice as he can't seem to stop himself. Either way, she lets him ride it out, flipping his wallet closed and setting it on the bed.

"Thanks," she says easily, smiling in his direction even if he isn't looking at her. "I take pride in talking good." There's a slight hint of a tease there, but it's a gentle one.

Her eyes move to his hearing aid. "Why did you end up leaving the Army? If you don't mind me asking."

[lonehawk]

That tease is heard, and answered by another flare of red that she might miss as he turns his face away from her completely, nearly cross-eyed at this point and cursing his inability to say almost anything to this young woman that doesn't wind up half-twisted in ways he doesn't mean it to be. Whether it comes out sounding like some demented innuendo or just that he's a braindead lummox, Clint doesn't like the way that he keeps making an idiot of himself. He unfortunately has a tendency of doing that around cute girls - most of them don't take it as well as Laura is, which is a small comfort, but still. Not what he's going for at all.

But then she changes the subject, or reverts it back to a previous topic, and that's just as bad in a different way because he doesn't really want to talk about it. There's too much shit and even trauma tangled up in why he left the armed forces for him to be comfortable talking about it, even in this town where people are generally very welcoming of soldiers, grateful for their sacrifices and the risks they take every day. But it's a town where they don't really seem to know how to deal with injuries fighting can cause, especially if they're not an "obvious" injury like a missing limb. And the darkness that lurks in the mind... forget it. It's barely even something soldiers talk to among themselves, let alone anyone else, despite recent movements in psychiatric fields that are showing it's just as much of an injury as anything that leaves a scar. People don't want to believe their heroes can break.

"There was a grenade," he says, picking up his prybar and starting to remove the molding around the window carefully, the very short nails easily popping out of the wall. It gives him something to do that doesn't involve looking at her, because he doesn't want to see the look on her face when he tells her that he's damaged, that pity and uncertainty of what do I do with this now that he's seen a lot in the last three years. He's also not about to tell her nearly everything, and though he can easily keep a straight face, it's always easier to change a topic when you're not looking a person directly in the eye. "It got me and Derek - one of my groupmates. He could go back, I couldn't. Got somewhere you want these?" he asks, the first strip of molding coming loose in his hand.

[watercolorist]

She's honestly surprised that he gave her a straight answer at all. She knows from experience that these kind of stories aren't told to illicit sympathy or pity. That and there's something in the cool way he changes the subject. It's not unfriendly, but there's an unspoken choice to focus on something else.

She gets off the bed and moves to him in order to take the strip of molding. "I can put them over here," she offers, reaching for it. She's feeling strange enough as it is not really being of much help. This at least makes her feel useful.

"My dad was in the Air Force," she says. "Had a couple of close calls in Vietnam." Not that he'd ever talk about them. Not directly. Still, she'd found the letters he'd written her mom one day when she was in high school. The unedited parts of her father and what he'd lost had made her smear the faded ink with her tears. She grins. "When I was little, I used to want to be a fighter pilot because of him. Then of course, I grew up and realized fighter pilots are jerks with death wishes."

She glanced over at him. "Not that I think you're... I just mean in the Air Force guys think they're god's gift because they have a pair of wings."

I think Sam is offended now XD

[lonehawk]

At this point he's learned that people are still gonna stare and wonder if he doesn't say something, and so he's figured out an... abbreviated version of the truth. So abbreviated that it doesn't tell anything beyond the basic fact of I was injured badly enough to be discharged. There's no mention of what sort of injury he has, or even if he still has it; there are a few wounds that take so long to recover from that it's impossible to stay in, many more that could wound him to the point where he couldn't function as a soldier but could still be a regular person who was just a little careful sometimes, and surgeries that could fix just about anything. The majority of people can tell that he shuts off after he gives that answer; those that can't, he just blank-face ignores.

But Clint's in the middle of removing the second strip of molding, being careful not to bend the thin little nails or crack the wood, when she says the bit about her dad being in Vietnam. It's not what he's expecting, and he faces her and blinks in surprise for a moment, pausing in his molding-prying as that calculates. "...It was really bad over in 'nam." Not that he was there, obviously, he'd been born while all that was going on, but the people in charge now had been the grunts back three decades ago. It was impossible not to hear stories. "Lot of guys went in and didn't come out the same. But he came back to you, right? He came back home and you had him for a long time."

And that? That gets him to grin, a real grin, wide and with a chuckle, before going back to the job he'd been doing, pulling off the second strip and getting started on the third. "Don't tell the guys I do like in the Air Force, but- yeah, they're pretty much a bunch of assholes."

As he should be!

[watercolorist]

His question about her dad softens her expression slightly and she nods and smiles, grateful that she was one of the lucky families. It's not enough to assume that Clint's hadn't been as lucky, but there's something about the way he asked that tells her that it matters. "My parents live about an hour north of here. He's retired and attempting to settle down." She sets the molding down to the side and then returns in case he has more for her. "I think it was tough for him over there, but he never let any of us know. There was dad the soldier and then the man he was at home."

She smiles. He has a nice chuckle. "I shouldn't group them all together, but you move around to enough bases and you start to sense a pattern."

"Do you have family here in town?"