Thicker Than Blood

Chapter 2: Clint v. the Big, Scary, Badly-Dressed Supervillain

Clint had thought that after Barney left for the circus again, he'd be totally bored. He didn't know why he thought that, seeing as he and his mom were living with a bunch of heroes, but he did.

But only a few weeks after Barney left, it seemed like the whole group of X-Men was preparing for... something.

There had been a serious uptick in the anxiety levels around the house, and Clint had definitely noticed. So when he was working with Storm, he had to ask, "Is something going on that I don't know about? Are the bad guys coming back?"

"The professor's oldest friend is coming to call," Storm replied with a reassuring smile. "They don't always see eye to eye, and many in our staff simply do not trust the man."

"Okay," Clint said, though it was clear he was working it out for himself. He shook his head the more he thought about it. "That sounds dumb. If you don't like him, you should just not invite him."

"Charles is well aware of how we all feel," she assured him. "And he still believes it's important to keep those lines of communication open."

Clint leaned forward. "Charles is weird."

She smiled warmly and nodded to herself as she tried to reroute him back to his lesson, though now that Clint knew what was going on, he was watching even closer than before as everyone seemed to be battening down the hatches for something terrible to happen — until an older man in a cape finally showed up.

Clint was in the living room playing with Arrow when he saw the man walk in, and he sat up quickly and ran to the door in the hallway to stick his head out. The tall man was talking to Scott, who had his arms crossed, but they were both turned so Clint couldn't read their lips.

But once they headed down the hall, Clint stepped out to look up at the guy and make sure these ridiculous people he was living with knew how it was done — because they were being so uptight about the whole thing.

"You don't look impressive at all," Clint said, his arms crossed as he looked up at the tall man as much as he could. "I mean, I like the color... but why do you need a cape like you're Dracula?"

Erik stopped and frowned down at the boy. "Aren't you a little young to be in this school?"

"Aren't you a little old?" Clint shot back.

Erik smirked to himself. "I suppose I am," he replied in a velvety tone. "But I'm not here to learn." He shook his head at Clint's reactions and simply headed down the hall again to meet up with Charles.

Clint kept his hands on his hips all the way up until the door closed and then turned to face the X-Men, who were all in varying stages of amusement and shock. "You guys're a bunch of scaredy-cats. He's, like, the crypt keeper and dresses like he's blind."

Logan burst out laughing at that, not even trying to hide it, with Kurt not far behind him.

"He's not wrong," K agreed, though she was amused just by watching Logan and Kurt as they fell apart. "But how do you really feel about it, Clint?"

Clint grinned her way, clearly pleased with himself for getting such a solid laugh out of everybody, especially Logan. "Well, you're all acting like it's the end times, and I bet my mom could lay him out flat just by herself — not to mention Jean or Storm."

"Yep, he'd be screwed if he pissed off the girls," Logan agreed.

Clint grinned over at Logan and then shrugged easily. "That's because they're them," he said perfectly matter-of-factly, before he went back into the living room to play with Arrow.