Hey, losers, I'm probably out doing something amazing, so leave a message, and I'll try to get back to you. Or just think really loudly at me. I'll hear it. BEEP.
i was pretty much raised by wolverine. that should tell you all you need to know
[Okay, Barton is really, really lucky Quentin actually likes him, because reading all that? It's rough. He's instantly and painfully bored, but since he did (regrettably?) ask, he does at least try to wrap his head around why anyone would intentionally use what his own explanation admits is a vastly less efficient way of accomplishing a task. If it's truly that precise using a bow—which Quentin has to assume it must be, having never picked up one of the damn things in his life—to the point where breathing differently fucks the whole shot up, then... what's the point? Just seems like statistically you'd miss more than you hit.
... Then again, Clint doesn't seem to ever really miss. Which honestly, Quentin just chalked up to a natural aptitude for spatial awareness and never missing arm day in like 30 years. Not like... some deep aspirational philosophy or something.
Man. See, this is why he normally just uses telepathy whenever he needs to understand a different perspective. Way easier.]
yyyyeah i mostly use psychic weapons so. not sure how that works into your metaphor. i mean i don't exactly have to aim but that's just because the whole kit and kaboodle is, you know, a part of me and stuff.
( it doesn't tell him everything he more-or-less needs to know, but as clint also knows logan, would even call him a friend even if he knows logan finds him annoying as fuck, clint doesn't think it's quite as damning as quentin might intend it to sound.
but in the rest of it, he's not wrong. it'd started as a means to be useful, to have something to do other than shovelling elephant shit and helping to fix rides. it'd been something to do that also made him feel wanted, even if neither jacques not chisholm had been quite the father figures he'd been hoping for.
the "it makes a point" of it all had come later. )
it doesn't, quire. you being able to do what you can do because it's you isn't the same thing.
but it's not like I really give two seconds thinking about why thor uses a hammer, or tony decides to dress up as a tin can.
my choice is my choice, is mostly what it comes down to.
plus there's just something really funny about kicking some bad guy's ass with some string and wood.
yeah, see, there was a baby emerging consciousness ai in charge of the simulation that needed help. i helped. telepath stuff.
well, didn't go exactly as planned, and now i've got a copy of its memories stuck in my head with nowhere to put it. also i can't access them. not ideal, but not the worst thing.
i just remembered it because you were rambling about "personal responsibility" and crap.
( is that what clint was expecting? no, not at all. is it better? debatable. )
so... you're an external hard drive, is what you're saying, only without the right admin privileges to access the questionable folder you've just downloaded from a questionable website and we've just gotta hope it doesn't install anything weird on you.
but with the positive spin of 'if something goes wrong with the ai, you can maybe kind of fix it'? like a data restore or whatever.
dude. that's not how any of this works. ignorance about telepathy i'll forgive since it's not like you avengers have ever had any decent psychics around, but how do you not know about computers? and don't say "i grew up in the circus" because i know for a fact you hang out with all kinds of "super genius" nerds.
if you must know the whole system was going to shit, and the only way to fix it was to do a hard reset that would wipe the old ai's memories. in layman's terms, kill it. i figured hey, doing really stupid shit to save the tragic asshole of the week is what bleeding heart superhero types do, right? so i downloaded a backup of its mind to do a full restore after the reset.
but then the fucking access terminals disappeared. guess new baby ai doesn't want its old memories back. and old ai is... hiding or something. thing is there shouldn't be any part of my mind i can't access, and yes, obviously i set up all kinds of security to keep it from, in your words, "installing anything weird on me". but now the damn thing won't come out. you don't build a hulk containment facility planning for him to lock himself in, you know?
the "super nerds" do the computer stuff, quentin. we're lucky I can type.
let's not talk about what people do to try and stop bruce, please. that's a shitty comparison.
( given, you know, clint did kill bruce and he did undergo a murder trial for it. given clint absolutely, completely hates himself for agreeing to do it in the first place. )
anyway, precisely none of what you've said makes me feel good about any of this.
1. that's sad. i'm sad for you barton. see, this is what happens when people don't have group telepathic knowledge share. 2. a shitty comparison for you to make, maybe. but i'm a fellow walking wmd. if you don't think there's just as much containment crap for qq as there is for big green i got a bridge to sell ya. 3. it's not supposed to make you feel good. but hey, if something goes tits up at least you'll know why, right?
1. no-one needs to see my thoughts 2. ALSO not what I meant. but for what it's worth, if you don't think I've got an arrow for every person I work with, you've got another think coming. 3. yay knowledge
my bad i forgot there's a merciful way to kill your friends hmmm is it psychic dampener arrows? i bet it's psychic dampener arrows
bishop's mind smells kinda like popcorn btw. you'd think it'd be the opposite, what with the whole carnie thing, but nope. wait is she also a carnie?? but like... from a nicer circus????
uh you're the one who said "everybody's got an arrow with their name on it" or whatever shit. what the hell else does that mean other than murdering fools?? is that what you avengers do when you're bored? just a little casual platonic arrow-shooting amongst friends?
hey so question: is being sulky and uptight like a prerequisite for being an arrow person or is it a consequence?
[There's a mildly suspicious pause before he replies. Did he go get a snack? Or is he regretting edgelording a little too hard? The world may never know.]
sooo i was right about psychic dampener arrows
[And then there's a much more suspicious pause before his next message.]
just to be clear i don't make a habit of killing people either. in case there was any confusion. there shouldn't be. but. you know.
i talk a lot of shit. i know it, you know it. it's whatever. doesn't make me a psycho. we gucci? great, good talk.
yeah no i was just clarifying because of the whole "merciless slaughtering" thing. it's the dark humor. people get weird about it. you know, you try to kill a bunch of randoms in a fit of teenage angst—unsuccessfully, mind you!—like two times and now nobody can take a goddamn joke. it's fine though. don't worry about it.
anyway, where was i? oh right. you being uptight.
exhibit a: you don't know any card tricks exhibit b: you're being cagey af about having anti-telepath arrows. dude everybody and their dog has that shit these days. telepaths are weird and scary and nobody likes us yadda yadda. yawn. that's old news. you don't have to be weird about it.
also there were evil doppelgangers running around this place literally last week so you know. relevant.
...that's it? you really think I haven't heard an off-color joke in my time?
I know card tricks! I just don't know card "tricks". which honestly just says I had a slightly more interesting, less lonely teenage experience than whatever would've led to me knowing how to guess what card someone's just picked out a pack. could probably figure something out since you're so goddamned hung up on it though.
...do you just take someone not telling you what you want to know as someone being weird and uptight? cause there's DEFINITELY another word we could use for that, and it's not one that describes me.
mine was just an asshole, I dunno if I'd go so far as to say 'evil'.
look man i'm just telling you people i know have been calling me a psycho for years. i'm a mind-reader, not an arbiter of truth. and we don't exactly have a big overlap in social circles, so idk, maybe you're a freak too.
ugh i'm not "hung up" on anything it was a dumb bit, okay? just forget it. christ on a stick.
i like knowing things. it's kinda my whole deal? sue me. if you were a mutant i'd have already read your mind, but you're not. this is me being courteous.
well i didn't get one. but if i did he'd probably be evil. that'd be my luck. and in that situation i do in fact recommend the "merciless slaughter" route. wasn't kidding about the wmd thing, in case that wasn't clear.
uh huh. well i don't know too many avengers other than you so guess i'll take your word for it.
right because i'm sure all of logan's poker buddies will be lining up to add me to their game nights. eh, if you're offering. i mean, using my powers is way more effective, but at a certain point it's almost too easy, you know?
[And it has nothing to do with wanting to hang out with the only person here who isn't a version of someone he knows.]
you keep saying that. but see, i love me some dirty mental laundry. i'm sure you've got a couple of dumpster fires in there i could get a good chuckle out of.
hey buddy you do you. i'm just sayin if i woke up evil tomorrow or a version of me popped out of the ether who's even more petty and vindictive? first thing i'd do is make you forget how to aim. well, maybe not first. but top five at least. i've met my evil clone before, and sometimes it's just more humane to give someone the old yeller treatment behind the shed out back
[... So yeah, obviously "luck" talking, and not that other thing. Obviously!]
we don't invite telepaths. didn't even invite spider-man for the longest time cause none of us were sure if that spidey sense of his would, you know, let him know when someone was trying to fuck him over.
( (and also he never has money, which is a little rich coming from clint, but—.)
so, yeah, that's a no. )
you can make your own little poker game.
and no, I wouldn't know, but you and I both know there's a chance you're gonna have to do something without your powers at some point in your life. relying on one thing and one thing alone's just setting yourself up for failure, and I don't for a second believe you're not a guy that doesn't like to have some surprises in his back pocket.
( WHY are you like this— )
yeah, well, that's because I'm a divorced man in his thirties. explore away, kiddo, just don't say I didn't warn you.
I had to deal with going blind once. "I'd make you forget how to aim" isn't the threat you think it is.
but for the rest of it: nah. that's really not my style. most every time, there's a better way.
tbh it's not that hard to pull one over on a telepath if you know what you're doing. most stealthy mind-reading is misdirection. don't think about pink elephants, etc. once you figure out what to look for we can't do much more than skim surface thoughts without it being noticeable, and controlling your surface thoughts is just discipline. not that complicated.
uh, excuse you, i can manage perfectly fine without my powers. i've done... stuff. before. hacking, building, cool shit. i'm a little rusty is all! give me a break, there wasn't exactly a ton of normie crap on krakoa.
[No comment on how the fact that Krakoa fell literally proves Clint's point. Quentin's going to just move right along to... whatever shit Barton is rambling about in those last three lines. That's it? He just... doesn't give a fuck? Just says "yeah, go rifle through my brain, turn evil, fuck me up bro" and then sits back all nonchalant with his arbitrary moral rules and misguided optimism like an omega level telepath is the same as some basic bitch street-level psychic? Who does that?
... Well. A guy with no powers, probably. Magnitudes of power don't mean as much when you've got nothing, do they? Maybe for Barton the omega level mutant and the street level enhanced thug are the same. Because ultimately they're all infinitely more powered than he is. It's multiplying by zero.
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[Okay, Barton is really, really lucky Quentin actually likes him, because reading all that? It's rough. He's instantly and painfully bored, but since he did (regrettably?) ask, he does at least try to wrap his head around why anyone would intentionally use what his own explanation admits is a vastly less efficient way of accomplishing a task. If it's truly that precise using a bow—which Quentin has to assume it must be, having never picked up one of the damn things in his life—to the point where breathing differently fucks the whole shot up, then... what's the point? Just seems like statistically you'd miss more than you hit.
... Then again, Clint doesn't seem to ever really miss. Which honestly, Quentin just chalked up to a natural aptitude for spatial awareness and never missing arm day in like 30 years. Not like... some deep aspirational philosophy or something.
Man. See, this is why he normally just uses telepathy whenever he needs to understand a different perspective. Way easier.]
yyyyeah i mostly use psychic weapons so. not sure how that works into your metaphor. i mean i don't exactly have to aim but that's just because the whole kit and kaboodle is, you know, a part of me and stuff.
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but in the rest of it, he's not wrong. it'd started as a means to be useful, to have something to do other than shovelling elephant shit and helping to fix rides. it'd been something to do that also made him feel wanted, even if neither jacques not chisholm had been quite the father figures he'd been hoping for.
the "it makes a point" of it all had come later. )
it doesn't, quire. you being able to do what you can do because it's you isn't the same thing.
but it's not like I really give two seconds thinking about why thor uses a hammer, or tony decides to dress up as a tin can.
my choice is my choice, is mostly what it comes down to.
plus there's just something really funny about kicking some bad guy's ass with some string and wood.
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see now you should have led with that, not all this personal responsibility crap. spite is always a motivation i can get behind.
[Sure, Quentin does understand that Barton isn't entirely motivated by spite. But he likes that explanation better, so it's what he's going with.]
oh right guess i should tell you about the ai in my brain at some point
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the WHAT
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well, didn't go exactly as planned, and now i've got a copy of its memories stuck in my head with nowhere to put it. also i can't access them. not ideal, but not the worst thing.
i just remembered it because you were rambling about "personal responsibility" and crap.
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so... you're an external hard drive, is what you're saying, only without the right admin privileges to access the questionable folder you've just downloaded from a questionable website and we've just gotta hope it doesn't install anything weird on you.
but with the positive spin of 'if something goes wrong with the ai, you can maybe kind of fix it'? like a data restore or whatever.
( does clint do computers? not really. )
how does the ai feel about all of this?
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if you must know the whole system was going to shit, and the only way to fix it was to do a hard reset that would wipe the old ai's memories. in layman's terms, kill it. i figured hey, doing really stupid shit to save the tragic asshole of the week is what bleeding heart superhero types do, right? so i downloaded a backup of its mind to do a full restore after the reset.
but then the fucking access terminals disappeared. guess new baby ai doesn't want its old memories back. and old ai is... hiding or something. thing is there shouldn't be any part of my mind i can't access, and yes, obviously i set up all kinds of security to keep it from, in your words, "installing anything weird on me". but now the damn thing won't come out. you don't build a hulk containment facility planning for him to lock himself in, you know?
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let's not talk about what people do to try and stop bruce, please. that's a shitty comparison.
( given, you know, clint did kill bruce and he did undergo a murder trial for it. given clint absolutely, completely hates himself for agreeing to do it in the first place. )
anyway, precisely none of what you've said makes me feel good about any of this.
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2. a shitty comparison for you to make, maybe. but i'm a fellow walking wmd. if you don't think there's just as much containment crap for qq as there is for big green i got a bridge to sell ya.
3. it's not supposed to make you feel good. but hey, if something goes tits up at least you'll know why, right?
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2. ALSO not what I meant. but for what it's worth, if you don't think I've got an arrow for every person I work with, you've got another think coming.
3. yay knowledge
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[Look, death by arrow is one of the very, very few ways he hasn't died.]
also 1. speaking from experience, no, they definitely do not. your brain smells like a day old grilled cheese, in case you were wondering
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and telling you would INCREDIBLY defeat the point.
I wasn't, thank you.
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hmmm is it psychic dampener arrows? i bet it's psychic dampener arrows
bishop's mind smells kinda like popcorn btw. you'd think it'd be the opposite, what with the whole carnie thing, but nope.
wait is she also a carnie?? but like... from a nicer circus????
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( —mostly. 99% of the time. )
I'm gonna let you ask kate that to her face, and I'm not gonna do a single thing when she punches you.
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is that what you avengers do when you're bored? just a little casual platonic arrow-shooting amongst friends?
hey so question: is being sulky and uptight like a prerequisite for being an arrow person or is it a consequence?
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on the naughty step, whatever.
NOT killing.
...yeah, okay, we can call ( ... ) training 'platonic arrow shooting' if you want.
sure a way of putting it though.
I'm not uptight.
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sooo i was right about psychic dampener arrows
[And then there's a much more suspicious pause before his next message.]
just to be clear i don't make a habit of killing people either. in case there was any confusion. there shouldn't be. but. you know.
i talk a lot of shit. i know it, you know it. it's whatever. doesn't make me a psycho. we gucci? great, good talk.
and you are uptight
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( a pause of his own here, one punctuated with a series of
look, it's generally not what a person chooses to do that's the problem.
but for the record, I don't make it a habit of working with anyone I think's a psycho.
you and I are working with very different definitions of 'uptight'.
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anyway, where was i? oh right. you being uptight.
exhibit a: you don't know any card tricks
exhibit b: you're being cagey af about having anti-telepath arrows. dude everybody and their dog has that shit these days. telepaths are weird and scary and nobody likes us yadda yadda. yawn. that's old news. you don't have to be weird about it.
also there were evil doppelgangers running around this place literally last week so you know. relevant.
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I know card tricks! I just don't know card "tricks". which honestly just says I had a slightly more interesting, less lonely teenage experience than whatever would've led to me knowing how to guess what card someone's just picked out a pack.
could probably figure something out since you're so goddamned hung up on it though.
...do you just take someone not telling you what you want to know as someone being weird and uptight? cause there's DEFINITELY another word we could use for that, and it's not one that describes me.
mine was just an asshole, I dunno if I'd go so far as to say 'evil'.
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ugh i'm not "hung up" on anything
it was a dumb bit, okay? just forget it. christ on a stick.
i like knowing things. it's kinda my whole deal? sue me. if you were a mutant i'd have already read your mind, but you're not. this is me being courteous.
well i didn't get one. but if i did he'd probably be evil. that'd be my luck. and in that situation i do in fact recommend the "merciless slaughter" route. wasn't kidding about the wmd thing, in case that wasn't clear.
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if you want me to teach you how to cheat at poker, I can teach you how to cheat at poker.
makes for some fun games with ben and logan.
ha, we both know there's nothing in my mind you really wanna see.
( is it your luck talking, quentin, or is it your self-perception. )
alright, let me just change my entire perspective on murder because quentin quire says so.
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right because i'm sure all of logan's poker buddies will be lining up to add me to their game nights.
eh, if you're offering. i mean, using my powers is way more effective, but at a certain point it's almost too easy, you know?
[And it has nothing to do with wanting to hang out with the only person here who isn't a version of someone he knows.]
you keep saying that. but see, i love me some dirty mental laundry. i'm sure you've got a couple of dumpster fires in there i could get a good chuckle out of.
hey buddy you do you. i'm just sayin if i woke up evil tomorrow or a version of me popped out of the ether who's even more petty and vindictive? first thing i'd do is make you forget how to aim. well, maybe not first. but top five at least.
i've met my evil clone before, and sometimes it's just more humane to give someone the old yeller treatment behind the shed out back
[... So yeah, obviously "luck" talking, and not that other thing. Obviously!]
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( (and also he never has money, which is a little rich coming from clint, but—.)
so, yeah, that's a no. )
you can make your own little poker game.
and no, I wouldn't know, but you and I both know there's a chance you're gonna have to do something without your powers at some point in your life. relying on one thing and one thing alone's just setting yourself up for failure, and I don't for a second believe you're not a guy that doesn't like to have some surprises in his back pocket.
( WHY are you like this— )
yeah, well, that's because I'm a divorced man in his thirties. explore away, kiddo, just don't say I didn't warn you.
I had to deal with going blind once. "I'd make you forget how to aim" isn't the threat you think it is.
but for the rest of it: nah. that's really not my style. most every time, there's a better way.
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uh, excuse you, i can manage perfectly fine without my powers. i've done... stuff. before. hacking, building, cool shit. i'm a little rusty is all! give me a break, there wasn't exactly a ton of normie crap on krakoa.
[No comment on how the fact that Krakoa fell literally proves Clint's point. Quentin's going to just move right along to... whatever shit Barton is rambling about in those last three lines. That's it? He just... doesn't give a fuck? Just says "yeah, go rifle through my brain, turn evil, fuck me up bro" and then sits back all nonchalant with his arbitrary moral rules and misguided optimism like an omega level telepath is the same as some basic bitch street-level psychic? Who does that?
... Well. A guy with no powers, probably. Magnitudes of power don't mean as much when you've got nothing, do they? Maybe for Barton the omega level mutant and the street level enhanced thug are the same. Because ultimately they're all infinitely more powered than he is. It's multiplying by zero.
Hmm.]
you're a dumbass, barton.
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