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]

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?"