Who Needs Powers?

Chapter 8: Just Like Your Mother

When Clint woke up, he still felt a little... fuzzy, he supposed was the best word for it. Like everything was tingly. Like his whole body had fallen asleep and had that same sort of pins and needles feeling of an arm that had lost circulation from sleeping on it weird.

He blinked a few times and stretched, trying to get rid of that weird feeling as he looked around. And, of course, when his gaze settled on Sinister, he remembered what was going on and fell into a deep frown. "What'd you do to me?" he asked

"I simply set a few things right." Sinister leaned forward, his eyes dancing with anticipation. "How do you feel?"

"I dunno. Fuzzy," Clint said, unconsciously moving away from Sinister. "Seriously, why does everything feel like the physical version of TV static?"

"A charming description," Sinister said with a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I'll need to know if you have any trouble with your mental state, of course. Otherwise, again, you should rest."

"You didn't tell me what you did, though," Clint said, sitting up a little and shaking some feeling back into his extremities, though that didn't quite dispel the tingling. "Gah. This is so weird."

"My advice would be to try and ignore the physical sensation."

"Okay, let's give you a TV fuzz all over your body and see how you handle it," Clint shot back without missing a beat.

"I've dealt with it perfectly well, myself."

Clint startled and then brought his hands up to his face. "Did you turn me into a vampire?" he asked in a terse whisper. "I didn't hit you or nothing! I was — I was mostly polite!"

Sinister couldn't help but chuckle at that. "I'm not a vampire, Mr. Barton."

"But I don't want to look like one either!"

"It's not a concern."

Clint was clearly starting to panic, though, and he started to get to his feet. "You still didn't tell me—"

Sinister shook his head, clearly ready to be done with the conversation and move on to his work. "Rest, Mr. Barton. I'm sure I'll be checking in with you soon enough."

Clint was almost shaking in anger and panic. "Can't you just tell me — I don't know what's going on—"

Sinister let out a patient breath. "I corrected a defect." He gestured to Clint with one hand. "Look at your arms, young man."

Clint was starting to get a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, but when he glanced down... yeah, the bruises were gone, and so were a few old cuts and scrapes from roughhousing with the other kids back home.

For a long moment, Clint almost couldn't breathe, and then he just sat back in a sort of daze. "Oh."

"At least now you can say you inherited something from your mother."

Clint blinked at Sinister a few more times, feeling like the world was spinning. "Oh," he said again in a quiet sort of voice, tucking his knees up to his chin unconsciously. But since he didn't really have anything else to add, that simply had Sinister turning back to what he was doing while Clint tried to wrap his head around it.

He hadn't asked for this. And he knew his mom definitely hadn't either.

He felt very small and very stuck as he kept his arms around his knees even after the fuzzy sensation started to fade away, so when some guy walked in looking important and official, Clint just tucked into a tighter ball and tried to be invisible like he used to do when he was little.