Fire and Ice

•1•

Kate sighs, watching the flat, dusty ground pass by as they drive through the middle of nowhere. Of course, there was a little town a few miles back, but they've been in the van for hours altogether.

"Bored?" Clint asks. He's the one driving. Kate called shotgun before they got in, despite the fact that it's just the two of them and a bunch of equipment.

"Well, I'd say your lack of interesting conversation can tell you the answer to that," she replies. "We've been driving in silence for ages."

"What are you talking about? I've been talking."

"Oh? I wasn't listening."

Clint rolls his eyes. "Sorry I'm not Nat, but I don't think I'm that boring. You're just being dramatic."

"But Nat tells me all the embarrassing stories — you don't."

"I can talk about things far more entertaining than embarrassing stories."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

He sighs, glancing out the window to his left. "Speaking of, we're getting closer, so we need to keep our eyes peeled for this... thing. Whatever it is."

"Strange object, fell from the sky during a freak storm. I'm aware."

"You think you're gonna be able to figure out what it is? What if you can't, like, test the chemical composition or whatever?"

"I'll use my knowledge in other fields to try and figure it out. And if I have to learn a whole new field in a night or two, then I think this'll be a fun little mission."

Clint chuckles, and they lapse into silence for a moment, looking out the window at desert and the van in front of them, which is occupied by Coulson, Sitwell, and some other agents. Then, Clint asks, "How do you think Nat's doing right now?"

"Last she updated me, dealing with Stark is like dealing with a spoiled child who happens to be a scientific genius."

"So basically you?"

"I am not a spoiled child," Kate argues, indignant. "Definitely not as bad as Tony Stark. All those brains mixed with all that arrogance... Though, at least he's doing the hero thing now. Coulson says he's not that bad of a guy, once you get to know him."

"Yeah, as if that'll ever happen."

Kate shrugs. "Maybe it will, maybe it won't. If it does, though, I'll definitely want to look at all his notes. Like, ever."

"Ah, you science nerds and your... science."

Kate laughs. "I don't even need a comeback for that; you did that all by yourself." Clint just shakes his head, continuing to search for the strange object.

It turns out to be an easy find; a bunch of people, likely from the town they passed through, are surrounding a small object in a large crater. They're hollering, grilling hot dogs, sitting on lawn chairs and truck beds. One guy has a chain attached to the object, leading to back of his truck. When he hits the gas, the object stays put, but his entire truck bed pops off like the lid coming off a can of soup.

Kate watches in fascination and curiosity, wondering what could be so heavy and/or stuck to do that.

"Got any theories?" Clint asks, brows raised.

Coulson gets out of the van in front of them, going to break up the party.

"You ever heard the tale of King Arthur?" Kate replies.

After the disappointed townies leave, they put up a whole operation around the object, fencing everything off. They set the equipment up surrounding an open, square hole where the object and the small sand tower it's stuck in are. None of it makes sense, but that's just the way Kate likes it — at least, at the beginning.