2014-01-02 - A New Home

Homeschooling was gonna /suck/, Adam has decided. The first delivery of school supplies, textbooks, and a StarkPad with additional books and god knows what other learning material on it has arrived at Clint's loft apartment in Brooklyn.

Sitting on the floor beside Lucky (who has taken a liking to the boy, thumping his tail on the floor as pizza dog leans heavily against the teen), Adam pieces through the contents of the first of three heavy cardboard boxes, grumbling. His trenchcoat has been thrown haphazardly over the back of the couch, and he virtually ignores Clint while lifting up books with names like 'Pre-Algebra: Formulas and Equations' and 'A History of the United States: Pre-1776 to 1895'. He scratches the dog behind the ear. "Lame. I really have to do this?"

"Yes. Shh," Clint says covering his phone for a second. "No, not you Hap, go ahead," he grabs a note pad and takes the cap off the pen with his teeth spitting it away as he scrawls things down. "So, four bedroom, uh-huh, it's not a rat trap is it? Yeah, well I've been to some gym man, okay, Joe, right, what's his number," Clint scrawls out a number. "Great I'll give him a call, thanks again, bye." Clint hangs up the phone with Happy Hogan, Tony's driver, bodyguard and former boxer, and smiles as he turns towards Adam. "Wanna go check out a place, a friend of a friend is selling his gym down by Muscle Beach, has a loft with four bedrooms up top."

Adam practically springs to his feet... anything to get away from the looming schoolwork. "Sure! Can Lucky come with?" he asks.

Pizza dog wags his tail, looking at Clint expectantly.

Clint can't help but laugh. "Yeah, he can come," he grins ducking down to give the dog's head a scratch. "His house too right?" he says as he stands back up and reaches into his his pocket for his wallet. It's produced and he gives Adam a twenty. "Go get us a couple of slices from across the street and meet me at the Hawkmobile, I'll give this guy a call and be right down."

Three slices of pizza (well, Lucky wanted one too!), two New York health-babysitting-sized sodas (no more than a regulation 20 oz), and a car ride to Muscle Beach later, Adam hops out of the car, eyeing the old gym with a giant For Sale sign out front, keeping the door open for Lucky to hop out.

The dog offers his leash to Adam, who takes a moment to remember to grab the end of it. Lucky lets out a sighing woof, then nuzzles the kid's leg. Babysitting this one is even more difficult than babysitting the bigger one.

"Well, it doesn't look like a /total/ rattrap," Adam comments, looking over the building. "Is that a balcony on the top floor?"

The building looks roughly three stories tall, but the first floor takes up two of them, evidenced from the tall front windows that make up the entire front of the building. Sure enough, a balcony wraps one side and seems to go around the back of the top floor.

Clint gets out of the car shaking his head at Adam and Lucky, before he turns and looks at the building. It was old and past it's prime, but it had just enough down on your luck charm to be appealing to Clint and it shows in how he smiles up at the place. He turns back to Adam. "No, definitely not a rat trap," he says and leads the way to the door where he knocks on the glass until a man comes to answer.

"Joe?" Clint asks when the door is opened.

"That's me," he says looking Clint up and down. Joe is a monster, a good six-foot-six of a body slowly going flabby but with more than enough muscle to make someone think twice about messing with him. He smiles well though, honest, good natured. "You must be the Hawkeye guy Happy was talking to me about, come on in have a look around." He steps out of the doorway. When he spots Adam, Joe smiles "And this must be your kid, looks like you and everything."

"Heh," Clint says not wanting to piss the guy off, since so far, this place looked decent. "Not mine, but I look out for him," he explains while checking out the gym. It's seen better days, and with the heat off it's cold as hell, but, it could work.

Adam looks at Joe, one hand running through his spikes, the other keeping a hold of Lucky's leash. "Mine if the dog comes in?" he asks, attempting politeness.

Joe shrugs. "Sure thing, kid. I had a dog like him when I was your age too."

Lucky wags his tail as he and Adam look around inside the gym. Most of the equipment has already been sold off, of course. The north, west, and east walls are all mirrors, except along a section of the north wall that's opened and tiled with that sort of sea green tile that seems to be prevalent in all those older gyms, leading down a hallway with a sign indicating that locker rooms lay beyond, and on the other side of the north wall, a heavy wooden door that has a bold black sign with white letters decreeing 'OFFICE'.

"Down there's the locker rooms, there's showers, lockers, and a sauna," Jos explains. "We'll take a look there in a minute. Also down there is the door to the stairs to the loft. There's an elevator, too, but," he shrugs, gesturing to the elevator doors, visible from the entry to the hall, with a giant cardboard sign ducttaped to it with the words 'NOT WORKING' handwritten in permanent marker. "You know. It's broke."

Clint nods at the elevator and it’s sign. “Yeah, I noticed,” he says. He wasn’t too worried though it would make moving easier to have one, but then when you have a girlfriend that can fly and throw tanks at the moon, moving isn’t something you worry about too much. Clint stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks around the room eyeing everything carefully. He pauses when he sees himself in the mirrors flinching a little, did he really look like that? He looked tired, just this side of haggard even. He frowns and runs a hand through his brush cut and nods up at the boxing ring in the centre of the room. “So do we get that if we buy the place?”

Joe nods. “Yeah, it’s part of the deal. A little beat up but she’s still good. You box?”

Clint shakes his head. “Just Tae-Bo,” he jokes and when Joe gives him a /look/ he smirks. “Kidding,” he says holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I’ve done a bit of boxing, some Judo, Krav Maga and a couple of other things.”

Joe frowns “One of those mixed martial arts types? Shoulda guessed with that hair.”

Clint laughs. “Hell no, and what do you mean about my hair?” he asks looking back at the mirror. “My hair is awesome. Anyhow, no, my fighting is purely practical, I work out with a lot of people, so I pick up a bit here and there.”

He looks over at Adam, to check to make sure he hasn’t wandered off while they talked.

Adam has taken a spot 'holding up a wall' in his best sullen teenager pose, one hand idly scratching Lucky behind the ears while he surveys the open rafters above the main floor. There are plenty of hooks and eyes for hanging heavy bags-- or adjustable targets. And the solid rafters look pretty solid to swing from, if the appropriate cabling is added.

The mirrors annoy him, but for different reasons. No way he can run and bounce off walls here without breaking them.

Lucky senses his mood, and wuffs softly, licking his hand. Adam drops into a crouch beside the dog and wraps an arm around him. "So, what does the rest of the place look like?" he asks.

Joe nods towards the green tiled area that house the locker rooms "Like I was saying, the locker rooms are down here, also the utility room, got all your water and heating and stuff," he says.

Clint follows him down the green tiled corridor towards the guy's locker room. There's a girls too, which is good, but by the shape of the building and such, he could tell it was the smaller of the two. Kate would looove that. He smiles a little as he looks around the inside of the locker room. The guys' one wasn't that big itself. Lockers curved around three of the four walls with little wooden benches in front of them. In the back was the access to the showers, toilet stalls, and the heavy wooden door marked sauna.

"Pretty standard stuff," Joe explains. "Lockers don't got no locks on them, got to bring your own, but none of that pay garbage either. Showers all work, and so does the sauna, just got em off right now to keep the costs down. Anyhow if ya want I can show you the utility room as well."

Clint looks over at Adam. "What do you think?" he asks about the locker rooms as he follows Joe out the door.

"You're really thinking of buying a gym?" Adam says finally. "I mean, I like it so far, but... whoa." He shrugs. "I mean, I hope the living place has a kitchen, right?"

“Yeah, got you and Kate now, so, figured more space would be good, and well a gym in the basement is going to make training easier, I mean as it is I’ve got to trek all the way down to the Mansion or Academy to train,” Clint explains. Sure he could just get an apartment across the street from the Academy, but this is Clint, and he needs his space.

Joe chimes in. “And yeah, it’s a full apartment up there, lemme show you,” he says.

Joe takes them on a quick tour of what’s down stairs the utility room, the storage room, the office before he takes them up the stairs to the loft. The door opens into a little kitchen not too different from the one at Clint’s place and beyond it stretches the living area, with a set of patio doors at the far end that open onto the balcony. Most of the furniture is gone giving it the feel of a lot of open space.

To their left is a hall with a closet, the bathroom, and the bedrooms. “The one at the end’s the biggest, it’s got its own bathroom too, just a little one, and another set of doors to the balcony.”

“Dibs,” Clint calls needlessly before he goes exploring walking past Joe to check out the space. The windows in ‘his’ room definitely need a good clean but it’s spacious and bright. “Not bad,” he says nodding to himself before looking around for Adam.

Adam and Lucky had ducked away to explore the balcony. By explore, that is to say, Lucky was running around and Adam was perched on the railing, sitting with his feet hanging over the edge and looking over the sights of Muscle Beach, enjoying the view.

Clint comes out to the balcony ducking down to scratch Lucky's ears as he explores and sniffs around. "So, what do you think?" Clint asks Adam as he takes a spot next to him.

"I think it's awesome," Adam admits. "Four bedrooms-- that means I get a room of my own, too?" Beyond cool for a kid that had been living on the streets for a couple of years. "And plenty of places for targets and stuff, too." He looks back out.

"And it's a hell of a view."

Clint nods. "Yeah, hell of a view," he agrees with a nod before adding. "And yeah, of course you get your own room, I'm a jerk, but not that big of a jerk to hog all those rooms," he gives Adam a nudge. "Anyhow, I am going to be smart for once and y'know get the place inspected and everything, and if it's good and passes muster with CPS, I think I'm going to call my lawyer and buy this place."

Adam nods, grinning. "Sounds good." He elbows Clint with a grin. "You know this balcony means you can throw a killer housewarming party, right?"

Clint grins "Yeah, we'll see," he says about the party. "It's a great deck though, going to need to get a grill."