milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Clint's putting an unlit cigarette in his mouth when he enters the bar; he stops for a brief moment before shrugging and putting the cigarette back in its box, tucking it away in his blazer. Unlike last time, he's dressed like an office worker just off work, loosened tie included. If you don't notice the concealed holster and his shined black combat boots, and people usually don't.

He grabs a beer from the bar, and leans back to watch the crowd.

[OOC: Aaaand I am asleep! Slowtimes all around? ♥. No new threads, please.]

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Charles is sitting near him, tucking his notebook in his pocket and nods to Clint,

"Its a busy evening."

Today he's in a tweed jacket over a partially unbuttoned dress and notes Clint's suit and the awareness of that holster.

"Is it?" Clint asks, glancing to him amiably. "This is my second time here, so."

Clint sizes Charles up fast and rough -- he's not exactly gathering profiles, here. Educated, rich, probably not good in a fight. He doesn't dismiss him, though -- people've surprised him before, and you don't have to be built to shoot a gun or fuck up someone's plans with sheer braininess and friends.

He straightens, and offers a hand. "Clint Barton."

"Yes, from my experience it is. Charles Xavier,"

He feels rather complimented by Clint's thoughts, they remind him of what he's heard a good deal from CIA agents. Their low level paranoia is something he's finally managed to filter out, it was giving him a headache. He returns the handshake.

The name doesn't ring a bell.

(Well, for a moment there's a half-leap of association, but it's only to someone else he's met. Xavier isn't that odd of a name, even if Clint mostly knows people who pronounce it the other way.)

"Good to meet you," he says, with a half-grin. "I don't really want to ask if you come here often, but that's kind of the question you've left me."

"Often enough though the more common question here is what's your when and where. It allows you to skip the how long one if you wish. My time and place is 1962 and I'm currently in Washington DC,"

Those pronunciations are ones Charles has heard before but they're not common with the people he knows. He returns the half-grin with a smirk that's almost a grin.

"2011," Clint says. "California."

He wasn't even born in '62. That's kind of weird. On the other hand, it makes sense that a guy like who Xavier seems to be would end up somewhere like DC. He's probably a lawyer or something. Or a psychologist.

Or a preacher, but if he's a preacher he's one of those who's just a step away from being a con artist.

The guesses on what he is are interesting, he's never had anyone think he's a preacher before,

"That's a common decade around here. Where in California?"

The question puts Clint a little on edge, in his head, even though he's aware it shouldn't. Some days he'd just say it right off, but he's still a little jangled from work today. Everyone's stressed out about the alien thing, and Henry and Beamon actually had an honest-to-God argument.

About the filing cabinet.

Clint hates office drama.

"San Diego," he says. "It's in the south, on the water. What do you do? I'm not really familiar with the sixties, to be honest; I was born at the dead end of them."

His thoughts are rather like the men in the Facility, Clint must work for some agency,

"I've heard of it but never been. My family vacations tended to be to England. I'm a geneticist and my work is looking at mutations."

"Huh," Clint says, his curiousity clearly piqued. "What sort of mutations? I mean -- layman's terms, speaking."

His ex-wife is a biologist, and he actually found a lot of her conversation interesting while she was studying for her degrees.

"All sorts from changes in eye color to the complexities of evolution. We've only begun to map and understand the genome in my time, but I know there's much we can learn. Humanity has not stopped evolving,"

He's good at layman's terms, because at heart, Charles is a teacher and in some ways, someone spreading the word of mutants.

"Yeah." Clint sets aside his beer, and gets a coffee in return. (Decaf. It's after five.) He kind of loves the idea of a telepathic ordering system. "We just finished mapping it a couple years ago. My ex is a biochemist, concentrating in virology."

"That's an important and complex topic. I'll have to see if Bar will let me look at it,"

He knows that the future and what's been discovered creates complications but he would love to see a mapped genome.

"It get tetchy about intel from the future?"

That... maybe makes sense. Some sci-fi movies do that.

"She does sometimes, also she tries to remind me not to work all the time while I'm here. At home, my sister does that for me. But yes, issues of future knowledge and possibilities make everything complicated,"

His world seems to have more timelines than others and he doesn't want to know why Erik seems to make people from possible futures nervous.

"I heard there're some pretty close universes, here," he says, after a moment.

"There are. I've found a number with mine and that can create great pitfalls in conversation,"

Nori has been one of the most difficult people with this because she has a certain idea of the world and tries to slot the world into it. Charles doesn't fully fit into what she knows and it makes all of their interactions tricky.

"Yeah."

There's no concern in his voice, but it's there, nebulous in his mind. Not about himself, or not really, but for a red-haired woman.

"I find it helpful to look for ways to know if someone is from a variation on your world or not. For myself, when I mention my work combined with my name, that tells me enough. It can take some time to find the right combination but it is possible,"

He also uses his telepathy in that regard but it doesn't help everything, as he can't make everyone understand that he doesn't need to know possible timelines.

"Yeah, that makes sense," he says, after a moment. "I guess I'll figure out what separates out timelines with enough experience. Right now I only know when people talk about their worlds being overrun by aliens."

"You might look for well known figures as that will help with commonalities. Details are where the problems tend to appear."

Clint nods.

"I'm not exactly famous. I take it you're not so lucky?"

"My field is rather new in my time and no one else has my particular focus within it."

"That makes sense." He wonders idly if Bobbi's heard of the guy; he'll just wiki him when he gets home instead of asking, though.

"Yes, I'm lucky enough to be able to use myself as a point of reference. I know that's a rare occurrence."