i'll be pissed if you kick it while chilling

Clint’s barely into the Tower when Natasha’s there, silent at his side, a bump at his shoulder. “Hey,” he says, and she smiles her own greeting.

“Hawkeye! Where have you been, we need you desperately, we are getting Spangles up to speed on pop culture, you look like a fellow who knows his rock ‘n roll.” Stark has his grin and his sunglasses on, always wearing some kind of fucking armour. When Clint doesn’t want to punch him in the face, he’s not that bad. Kind of overenthusiastic, maybe. It’s probably a really good thing he’s a hero and not a villain. But then, that could probably be said for most of them.

Not that some of them haven’t been both.

“Just feed him some Springsteen and the Stones,” Clint tells him. Natasha bumps him again, and he brushes his fingers against her wrist; things are okay right now. Mission Teach Cap About The Twenty-First Century has been pretty entertaining, if ineffective. Mostly because Stark won’t let anyone else take control and Stark never left the angry white boy phase even though Clint’s pretty sure he ain’t even white. Banner’s got this weird collection of indie films, “world” music, and old country. Cap liked the Johnny Cash and didn’t really give a shit about the rest, not that Clint can blame him. 

Natasha won’t get involved, which is a shame, because Cap’s reaction to riot grrl bands would be utterly priceless.

“Oh come on, Barton, everyone knows that, where’s your hidden gems?”

Cap appears at the top of the stairs. They’ve dressed him down since his first SHIELD days and he’s taken to jeans and t-shirts like a pro, but the damn boy scout haircut completely ruins the regular dude effect. Steve Rogers is probably the whitest white boy Clint’s ever seen. Rock ‘n’ roll? That’s not a question at all, but he can find that shit himself. Clint’s got a better idea.

“Hey, Cap, they played you any Tupac yet?”

the one with a really anachronistic title:

“Isabela,” he asks on a quieter evening, “why do you follow Hawke?”

“Arse like that, who wouldn’t?” Her mouth curves up on both sides, eyelids hanging low, which says she’s baiting him. “Notice how he always walks in front? He’s so considerate. And those Red Hand leathers are so… accentuating.” 

“And here I thought it was for my glorious pelt,” Varric calls from the bar, where he’s been chatting with the innkeeper. “Rivaini, I’m wounded!”

Isabela laughs, open-mouthed and full. She’s so vivid and alive, settled into her own skin, solid where Fenris shifts to fit. Of the whole party, she always seems the most comfortable. Perhaps that’s what makes her so easy to be around — she needs nothing and demands nothing. If she’s hiding something, it’s not her expectations. 

She’s giving him the sidelong glance now. “Why do you follow Hawke?”

“I’m… not sure.” 

It’s somehow the truth. And by the grace of the Maker, she doesn’t question it, just gives him that all-knowing smile again and leans forward across the table. “He’s not like any mage I ever met,” she confides in a low voice. “And I knew the Hero of Ferelden.” 

The elven mage who’d stopped the Blight. Her story had trickled up over the waking sea and into Rivain, where Fenris had spent a fair few months dodging Danarius’ trackers. It hadn’t seemed to matter all that much, what mages did all the way in Ferelden. Surely it would never affect him. How times have changed.

“What was she like?” he asks now. Another Merrill perhaps — though perhaps Merrill was more a product of the Dalish than anything else. Or another Anders, self-righteous and angst-ridden. There’s a sorry thought. 

Isabela snorts softly. “Her bite was even worse than her bark,” she says. “A real stuck-up grouch and the sorest loser you ever met. But she was powerful, and she did save us all.” She raises her mug in a kind of salute and drains the rest of her drink. A wash of rum-scented air wafts across Fenris’ face.