Retired
Half Pint
Sep
Supermaxx
Mao Mao
Simple Unicycle
Fetzen
New Troy, Metropolis
Clark let out a sigh as water splashed up from the dish in his hands and onto his shirt. The dish had once been home to Clark Kent’s world famous casserole. Well, more like Martha Kent’s world famous casserole. Lois wasn’t much of a cook but Martha had seen to it that her son knew his way around the kitchen before she sent him off into the world. He’d whipped the casserole together for Clint, Lois, and himself after he and Hawkeye were done patrolling Metropolis. Clint and Lois laughed amongst themselves as Clark scrubbed at the dish with a sponge. He looked over his shoulder at them and a grin appeared on his face. It was good to see Clint having fun, for once. In the eighteen months they’d been working together he’d never once mentioned how he spent his time outside of investigating Lex. It was why Clark had invited him tonight. Maybe his talk with his mother last night had made him acutely aware of the fact that without his brother around Clint might have been feeling a little alone.
A snort slipped out of Clint’s nose and he called out to Clark.
“Wait a minute. You’re trying to tell me that Superman played kicker in high school?”
Not this again. Lois had laughed for about a week when she had found out. Lane was an Army brat, her father was General Sam Lane, formerly “Slippin’ Sammy Lane” of Metropolis University, and he took a particularly dim view of Clark’s athletic achievements given that.
“That’s right. If I remember correctly, Clark was the fifth-ranked kicker in the whole state of Kansas as a senior. Isn’t that right?”
Clark looked up from the dishes and smiled sardonically.
“I’ll think you find I was third, actually.”
Barton took a sip of the beer on the table in front of him and gestured towards Clark’s large frame.
“What are you? Six-feet-three, two hundred pounds? You must have been the biggest kicker those hicks had ever seen.”
With a roll of his eyes, Clark set the casserole dish down to soak on the draining board and then prepared to recite the explanation he had given Lois when she had found out.
“It was a compromise between my father and I. I wanted to play football but there was no way he was going to let me play linebacker or defensive end. I was still getting to grips with my powers back then. I’d have put half of the other team in the hospital in my first game. So… I suggested I play special teams.”
Clint took another sip of his beer and shook his head in disbelief at the thought of the Man of Steel kicking extra points. He and Barney’s names were all over the record books back in Iowa. Barney had played quarterback and Clint – deferring to his older brother as he known to do back then – played wide receiver through high school. It wasn’t until Barney had dropped out that Clint got his chance to start. He broke the state records for passing touchdown in his senior year before his first spell behind bars cut that short. It had been helping Barney on a B&E. Sometimes he thought about what might have been if he’d not followed Barney into a life of crime. The guilt at realising he might have been better off usually cut that line of thought short.
He stared at all of pictures of Clark’s happy family along the apartment walls and smiled wistfully.
“Man, that’s hilarious.”
Sensing that Clint had tailed off, Lois cleared her throat and then did only as Lois could – got straight to the crux of the issue with a single sentence. Even in casual conversation she was still the same probing, instinctive reporter that prowled the Daily Planet newsroom. Yet sat around the table her question was tactful, inconspicuous even, and Clark was glad she was there to ask it.
“So what do you do in your spare time, Clint? You’re still living in New York, right?”
Clint nodded as he spun the bottle of beer in his hands gently.
“Yeah, that’s right. To be honest with you, I’ve been so focused on this Lex thing that I’ve not really had much time for anything else. There’s this girl I’ve been seeing but it’s getting a little difficult to explain all of the bruises and late nights.”
Lois looked over at Clark in the kitchen with a smile.
“Oh, I remember that stage.”
Perhaps encouraged by Clint opening up with Lois a little, Clark sought out more information about this girl as he walked over to join Lois and Clint at the table.
“So tell us a little more abou-”
As he pulled out a seat there was an explosion in the distance. All three of them spun their heads in its direction.
“What was that?”
Lois and Clark made their way to the window and gazed out of their apartment across to the smoke billowing through the sky from Downtown. Lois grabbed the remote to the television, flicked it on, and scenes of a bald man in purple trousers laying waste to Metropolis flashed across the scene. He was swinging a massive ball of chain into the vehicles and buildings around him. It was the Absorbing Man – once known to the world as Carl “Crusher” Creel.
Clark grabbed the buttons to his shirt and pulled them open, revealing his Superman shirt underneath, and he looked towards Barton.
“Clint, I think you had better get your gear ready.”
In the seconds between Clark and Lois staring out of the window, Barton had pulled on his Hawkeye uniform, and stood there drawing back his bowstring and checking the sights of his bow with a squint.
“Way ahead of you, Boy Scout. Let’s go kick some butt.”
