2013.10.04 - Dodge Arrow

"We're just going to start with the basics, okay? I need to figure out where you're at in terms of response time and general skill before we get to the fancy stuff."

One of the training area's modular walls has pulled out, providing a makeshift surface for the wide variety of arrows Clint has brought in today. Arrow has been left in Pepper's office. This is no place for a dog, especially a dog that just had lunch and wants to nap. There are probably going to be a lot of explosions.

Clint checks his bow over one more time, then fills up his hip quiver with about 95% regular arrows. Well, titanium tipped, but. "JARVIS, testing protocol H-87, please."

The room shifts, providing various obstacles in the air for Rescue to maneuver around- and things for him to bounce arrows off of. "Okay. Name of the game: Don't Get Shot. You ready?"

Thor, having gotten permission from a tired Sif to be out and about while she napped, reclines back on several chairs lined up just long enough for his legs by the table where Clint is speaking from. He brought a small (only five gallons, what?!) barrel of mead to share. And tankards too. He's drinking from one of them himself. For the moment, the Thunderer has little to add to the proceedings. So he just watches and drinks.

Pepper sighs and it sounds especially odd with the mechanical/electronic distortion the Rescue suit adds. Tony MUST have talked Clint into this. "Okay." She's finally managed to get enough of a hang of the whole flying thing to satisfy Tony at least somewhat, so this will be putting those skills to the test. With a short burst of energy from the repulsors on her feet and hands, she 'hops' up to hover about six feet off of the floor. "Ready."

Clint had to pass on the mead. At least until after he's done shooting. He's still a damn good shot when he's drunk, but his critical thinking skills go out the window very quickly. Not a good idea at all. "No repulsors for now, okay? This is straight-up dodgeball. Dodgearrow. I just invented it."

Once Rescue's up in the air, Clint gives her a smile and a thumbs-up before he knocks an arrow and lets it fly. It goes soaring... past her, but rebounds off of a protruding panel and doubles back at her.

At her back. Words. Okay maybe he had a little bit of mead.

Thor doesn't like taking no for an answer some times. He missed his friends, and drinking with his friends is best. And he did think of watering down the Asgardian mead before letting Clint drink any. Though he himself drank it straight up.

"Dodgearrow. I like this game," Thor comments, drinking more.

"This is starting to remind me of Calvinball." Rescue moves sideways as the arrow passes by, but one of the things that Tony certainly did NOT skimp on was JARVIS's interface with the suit. Almost the moment the arrow is past her, Pepper can see its flight path on the helmet's HUD, and when it ricochets she's moving immediately, twisting around and actually swatting at the arrow to knock it out of the air. And, since she's already in motion, might as well make this a little less like that fish in a barrel thing. Thankfully, this is the same training room she learned to fly in, so she knows the dimensions of the space and how fast she can travel in here. She's learned this almost as well as she's learned how to keep Arrow from driving her crazy when he's bored.

Clint's already got another arrow lined up. "It's like PE but with slightly less emotional trauma," he tells Thor over his shoulder, whilst firing off another shot.

Showing off a little? Maybe. He has to prove that he's still got it, though. His couch potato ways have not dulled his ability! Just his abs. Only a little though.

The first arrow heads directly at Rescue, but it's mere distraction for several more he fires off in rapid succession, bouncing off walls or the ceiling to come at her from all angles.

Do Scooby Snacks factor into that? Because those things are AWESOME! Also as good as Pop Tarts.

Almost.

"P...E...?" Thor questions as the All Tongue mostly garbles that for him. "I do not know what this is," he adds for clarity's sake right as he's taking another drink.

Pepper might find that many arrows flying at her unnerving, but JARVIS doesn't so much as bat a proverbial eyelash. Rescue manages to to easily dodge about half of the arrows, even letting one slip past her helmet by simply tilting her head a bit. Most of the rest either skim glancingly off of the armor at various spots, several others are knocked when she stops abruptly in mid-air and changes direction almost like a competition swimmer turning at the end of a lap, and one noteworthy one is caught in her left gauntlet then allowed to drop to the floor immediately. "So, when do I get to start throwing stuff back?"

Proof of Clint's ability to multitask when slightly tipsy (sure, it was watered down, but it's still Asgardian mead) in that he's capable of answering Thor while still keeping up the assault: "PE. Physical education. When you're in school, a portion of the day is set aside for making kids exercise." He sidesteps a bit and crouches down swiftly to grab a stray arrow that Rescue swatted away. His quiver's already looking a bit sparse, and he's not sure she's ready to deal with the specialty arrows.

Well, until Pepper has to go and say something like that.

EMP arrow. "Mostly in the form of pitting all the jocks- the athletic kids- against the loners and the geeks," he says as he knocks it. Not a high-enough grade to shut down JARVIS or the suit, but it should cause some distraction. Enough that maybe Pepper will have to rely on her own wits to dodge the next arrow Clint fires: the net arrow. A classic.

Thor considers Clint's explanation for a long moment which is dedicated to drinking more mead.

"This hardly sounds productive. Are not thine children trained for- Nevermind. I forget the education of which thou doth speak is of the Midgardian sense." Pause, drink, ponder, soft frown, more drinking.

The red flashing warning that JARVIS puts on the HUD for Pepper doesn't give her enough time to truly react to the EMP arrow. She dodges the projectile itself, but then the electromagnetic burst momentarily makes the HUD display flicker and JARVIS's voice to crackle very worryingly. Luckily, though, that's all it seems to do and despite her visibly recoiling away from that arrow Rescue's flight path remains smooth enough. And then, a net. JARVIS picks up on and points out the tiny weights that help deploy and open the snare, but maybe a residual effect of the EMP makes the actual netting go completely unmentioned. Pepper changes direction to avoid the tiny weights, not sure what they're going to actually do, and ends up completely tangled up in the net. And, she falls about ten feet to the floor where she hits with an only partly metallic sounding *CLANG*.

"Humans don't have a warrior culture- at least, most of us don't, any more. It's more about keeping the kids healthy, which is a discussion I don't think we need to get into right now." Clint shoulders his bow as Rescue drops out of the air like a downed bird. "You okay in there?" he asks, knocking on her helmet briefly- before he starts working on untangling her from the net.

Carefully, because these things are expensive.

Rescue doesn't move for a few seconds, and then a faint, strange sound emits from the helmet. It's made almost unrecognizable by the distortions, but as soon as the helmet is free of the netting it pops open, and Pepper is giggling almost uncontrollably. "...god, please do NOT tell Tony about this."

JARVIS's disembodied voice speaks over Pepper's giggle fits, sounding about as unamused as an AI could possibly sound. "Agent Barton, I am recalibrating Rescue's sensors to account for the monofilament netting. Do you have another such arrow to deploy during this training session?"

It's more than a little bit difficult to maneuver an armored suit out of a net, but Clint's managing. Hey, those arms aren't just for looks! He sits back once it's done and Rescue is free, then grins. "Secret's safe with me, Pep." He helps her to her feet if she needs it, then gathers up the net and leaves it a balled up pile on the table. It's a major pain in the ass getting it back in the capsule, but it's the kind of work Clint can do while he's sitting on the couch watching Dog Cops reruns.

"I do- want to give it another go?" he asks the nearest hidden camera, because that's as close to JARVIS's face as he can get, right? He picks up another arrow from the table, with the same little capsule attached to the arrowhead.

"JARVIS, it's okay, no need to get all angry." Pepper abruptly gets an 'uh oh' look on her face. She knows Clint won't blab about the net arrow, but has the AI already done so? That could potentially be bad. Well, what's done is done, no going back now. Rescue's faceplate closes down again and with a light hop she's back in the air, moving faster than before, and now also making use of the various obstacles as fleeting bits of cover. After all, if the recalibrated sensors can't pick up the netting at real-world speeds, there's no point in wasting it with 'baby steps'.

For several moments, Clint just stands there. Getting the feel of the room, the way the Rescue armor moved through the air. "I know that JARVIS handles a lot of the suit's performance," he says as he pulls his bow back off his shoulder. "Same with Tony's suit, right?"

He knocks the net arrow and spends some time just following Rescue along her flight path. "You never know what could happen, though- you could get cut off from him, somehow, or there's a malfunction, and you have to rely on your own ability to keep yourself alive." He fires. The arrow hisses and deploys the net mid-air.

"I just don't want you getting hurt."

Rescue has been watching Clint out of the corner of her HUD, and when he asks about JARVIS, she answers honestly. "Not as much as originally, but still a good bit, yes. I'm not sure about Tony's suit, though. I think there are differences." When it's clear that he's tracking the suit and preparing to fire that other net arrow, Pepper tries to not let JARVIS take too much control, abruptly changing direction despite knowing that there's no way any kind of evasive maneuver would actually make Clint miss. Then when the net is in mid-air, the HUD picks it up by the tiny weights and displays the net itself as just a hazy area framed by the weights. She's able to evade most of the netting, stopping and moving to return to the floor when one leg from the knee down is snared.

Clint lowers his bow and watches silently as Rescue lands- much more elegantly this time. "Better," he says, then steps in to help her out of it. "That's the only other one I brought- I'll have more ready next time. It's good training, though- sometimes you have to get out of the way of big things." A pause. "Like boulders. Or a giant's foot trying to stomp you."

He's speaking from experience, here.

"Want to try some repulsor stuff? Manual aiming?"

Rescue tries to keep herself from reaching a hand out toward Clint's shoulder to help maintain her balance, and it's a close thing until the net is completely removed from her leg and foot. "We can do that. It kind of reminds me of playing Duck Hunt as a kid... don't tell Tony I said that. I think he might get offended."