Mercy and Clint

[coyote_walking]

Mercy was working on a particularly difficult car which belonged to a particularly good client. It was a terrible car, but the best the small family could afford. With anyone else, she'd have suggested they give up and buy a new one, but that wasn't an option for them just now. So, with a fair amount of muttering and some swearing, she managed to finish up the last of the repairs. She let out a long breath, resting her head back for a moment before finally sliding out from under the car and beginning to put her tools away.

She rolled her head from side to side, working out the kinks. She deserved something decent for dinner tonight. Maybe she'd splurge and get a burger downtown. Or be a little more frugal and get tacos from her favorite stand. If they hadn't closed yet.

First, to clean up a bit. She hesitated, catching the sound of an unfamiliar engine and turned, hands on hips, to see who was coming into the lot.

Comments

[pretendtoneedme]

It really wasn't anything he'd expected - okay, sure, when was car trouble anything anyone expected? Clint had been given a plane ticket, then a claim number for a rental car, and a credit card that was supposed to cover anything his handlers had overlooked. They definitely hadn't expected him to use it for this. But some jackass had dropped a bottle in the road, which had, of course, broken, which had led to not one but two flat tires, even through the extra-thick rubber standard on jeeps and SUVs that did a lot of offroading. There'd been a lot of swearing when he'd pulled into a parking lot to look over the two flat tires and decide which one was less flat and could be driven on for awhile. At least swapping out the spare that was in the hidden compartment in the trunk was easy, and the grocery store he'd stumbled on could provide him directions to a local reputable mechanic. Even if they didn't have the tires for his vehicle in stock, they could at least patch it enough for him to get to a bigger city and either get a new tire or swap vehicles all together.

So Clint Barton found himself crawling slowly up the road to the repair shop, turning in carefully so as not to wreck the slowly deflating tire any more and risk breaking an axle, pulling into a free space and hopping out. He didn't look military or government - it freaked civilians out to see people in head to toe dark blue or black with obvious flak inserts in their clothing, so he was in fairly standard khakis and a t-shirt - but he certainly wasn't a local. Spotting Mercy, he glanced around quickly to see if there was someone else doing the "receptionist" job, but didn't spot anyone and started towards her. "Hey, sorry to bother you - I've got some glass in my tire, think you can fix it?"

[coyote_walking]

Mercy looked him over then glanced at the SUV. She couldn't quite help grinning, "Boy, that tiny spare looks even sillier on an SUV, doesn't it?"

She turned and gestured to the empty bay. "Sure, we'll bring it on in here. Keys?"

It only took a moment to get it on the rack and hop back out to take a better look at what she'd need. "You're in luck. I have a set of these in for a job that got put off for a few weeks. Won't take too long to switch them out." She nodded towards the inner door. "You can wait in the air conditioned office if you want or you can hang out here as long as you don't get in the way."

And as long as he didn't get all precious about a woman working on his rental.

[pretendtoneedme]

It wasn't much of a joke, but it was enough to get him to make a quick, lopsided smile as he shrugged one shoulder, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Worked well enough to get me here, but I'm not gonna get pretty much anywhere else on it and the one I couldn't replace. Whatever you can do..." There was no hesitation about trusting a woman with the car, he knew far too many female agents to doubt that a woman could be a mechanic, and he handed over the keys without blinking. She looked like she worked - that was all he needed.

Glancing at the door quickly, Clint looked back at Mercy as he debated the pros and cons. It would really be better if she didn't see some of the things in his luggage... not that she had reason to go poking at his luggage, but you never knew... "Do you want help or anything? Looks like you're alone here, and I'm not completely useless with cars."

[coyote_walking]

Mercy chuckled. "It's my garage so it's pretty much always just me here. But if you want to give me a hand I won't object - unless you get in the way."

She could smell... uncertainty? Concern? Something... on him. But he seemed decent enough and she had her big lug wrench close to hand if necessary.

"Tires are in the back right corner," she rattled off the numbers for him. "Grab the top two while I take these off and make sure you haven't damaged the wheel itself."

That would be a problem because she didn't have any of those in stock and this time of day on a Saturday? Well, they wouldn't be able to get their hands on any till Monday.

She went straight for the most damaged tire. If he'd been smart enough to get the spare on right away that one was probably good. It was the other one that - and yeah... there was no way he was going anywhere without a whole new wheel.

The look on her face probably made it pretty clear as she turned to face him. "I hate to have to tell you this, but..."

[pretendtoneedme]

With a nod, Clint turned to the back of the shop and made his way around the juggling pit of parts and other assorted paraphernalia to the stack of tires. Removing the two on top that were the wrong kind and balancing them against the wall, out of the way, Clint dragged the next two down, recognizing them as a match for the punctured ones. Rolling them over to where she was working on removing the lug wrenches, he left them there and backed away for now, leaning against the wall until there was something else he could do. She didn't need him hovering over her, and he wasn't about to do it and make everything all weird.

But then Mercy turned to look at him as she straightened up from her inspection, and she didn't even have to finish her sentence. The dismay that settled on his face was understandable, and the groan he let out as he rubbed his face with his hand was probably even more so. "дерьмо́," he muttered, behind his hand and below her hearing (or so he thought), taking a moment to compose himself before he dropped his arm to his side again and looked up at her. "And of course it's a rental. How bad're we talking here?"

[coyote_walking]

"The whole wheel itself needs to be replaced," Mercy said. "And I don't keep that sort of stuff in stock. It was a fluke that I even had those tires. And..." she glanced at her watch even though she already knew the answer, "there's no way I can even call to see if anyone local has them till Monday."

She looked at the wheel again, shaking her head as she mentally ran through other places around. "I can't think of any place locally that would be able to fix this today. "I'm afraid you're stuck here for a while unless you can get your rental company to drive another car out here for you."

Russian, huh? Well, he hadn't meant for her to hear it, so she'd just file that away for now.

[pretendtoneedme]

The string of words he let loose in a muted grumble weren't Russian, but it was clear this wasn't a set of complementary words. It was also clear that they weren't aimed at Mercy, as Clint dug a hand through his hair and turned in a circle, uselessly expelling energy that had been building up since the flats. This wasn't the worst situation he could be in, but it was still pretty bad - he should've just commandeered an official car, then he wouldn't have had to deal with all of this.

This was supposed to be a vacation, damnit.

After a handful of moments of muttering and turning, Clint brought himself to a standstill to meet her eyes again. "Pretty sure they're not gonna - I'll have to call them, see what they want to do. Maybe they'll send a tow truck and I can ride along, I'm not sure where the nearest location is. You okay with me making the call and seeing what they want to do?"

[coyote_walking]

Mercy gestured toward her office. "Go ahead. There's not much more I can do, but at least I can let you borrow a phone."

She was pretty sure he wasn't going to get someone out here on the late Saturday afternoon of a holiday weekend, but it was certainly possible that he'd gotten it from a somewhat local place. Though even if they got him a tow, the odds of there being many cars unspoken for was slim to none. But hey, it was possible.

Sorry this took me so long, hon

[pretendtoneedme]

The offer of a phone was met with a nod, but it obviously wouldn't be necessary as he pulled a cell from his pocket and switched it on to begin dialing. Clint did, however, avail himself of the offer of her office, stepping in and shutting the door for privacy - completely unaware that that would not be possible. He kept his voice a little lower than normal so it didn't carry, but there was no way he could have known about Mercy's superhuman hearing and senses.

"Hey, it's- yeah, I know you didn't want to hear from me for two weeks, but that rental just died and I'm in this small town in the middle of pretty much nowhere. -No I didn't crash it this time, some asshole tossed a bottle out a truck window and it wrecked the wheel! -Yeah! -Yeah, I'm sure, I'm in the mechanic's right now and she show- fuck that, can you get me another car? I know it's Saturday, but it's not like I've got any other options. -Don't make me bring up that time with the monkeys and the shaving cream. -You know I will. -You know. -Then take it out of the budget, this is the first vacation I've had in three years, like hell I'm having you pick me up just so you can send me to Borneo or Siberia again! -Yeah, fuck you, too. -......... -That's really all you can do? -......... -Damnit, all right, I'll figure something out. I'll call you when I know what's going on. -Yeah, talk to you soon."

After hanging up, Clint took a moment to let his head thunk against the wall with a small groan; this really had to happen to him on his first vacation in forever. He should know by now to just not try and take a vacation at all; something always cropped up to ruin it or cancel it, and it was starting to look like that was going to be happening this time, too. But he needed to tell the mechanic what was up, since it would be pretty unfair to leave her saddled with a car when he'd pulled in unexpectedly at the tail end of her work day, and Clint pulled himself up straight and composed himself - sort of - to see her, though he couldn't (and didn't try) to wipe the look of annoyance off his face. Appearance counted for a lot in deception, and one of the training regimens all agents went through was how to control their facial expressions. In the case he was in, it would be much, much more unusual for him to not be cheesed off about this, so he was able to let his very real irritation show as he stepped out of the office again.

"Sorry - they said they'd try to get something out here tomorrow, but there's just nothing available right now. Or they might call me and tell me to take a cab back to their distribution center tomorrow afternoon. Is there a motel or something around here I can get a room at for tonight?"

No worries!

[coyote_walking]

She hadn't been eavesdropping, but there wasn't much chance of her not over-hearing him. She winced when he said it had been his first vacation in three years, even as she was wishing she knew the story behind the monkeys and shaving cream. Curiosity was terrible.

She'd finished buttoning up his vehicle when he walked back in and was wiping off her hands on the cloth she kept in her back pocket.

"A hotel?" Her face undoubtedly showed her doubtfulness. "On a holiday weekend? There's probably not anywhere within 20-30 miles."

He seemed like a decent enough guy with a military-ish bearing - confident, comfortable in his own body, and probably a bit of a workaholic. Not that she could talk, given that the last time she'd taken a vacation had been basically never. She considered it a good month if she wasn't eating boxed macaroni and cheese to make ends meet.

She looked around the garage and checked her watch. "Um... well, look, if you can find a place with room I could drive you there. I'm done till Monday, and I don't have to be anywhere."

[pretendtoneedme]

"Thanks, but you don't have to, I can get a cab. You've already gone to enough trouble with this as it is." Clint was very aware of how it was a good idea to not push people in service industries too far, not because of any prior experience in the field but in how if you were exceptional in some way you stood out in a person's mind. Most customers in a typical workday were pleasant enough but neutral, interacting for the sake of a very specific reason and then gone without impression. He'd already been too unusual for her to forget him easily, so it was best to try and cut off anything face-to-face before it got even worse. She'd likely be dealing with a rep from the insurance company to pay for everything, and he could just be a face she'd helped out briefly late one Saturday.

Looking to the car, still frowning, Clint groaned a little under his breath and dragged a hand down his face, weighing the options in his mind. "...I'll head outside and let you close up in here. No use in both of us hanging around when you could be getting home." Trying to be courteous was likely the best way to go, and he moved forward to open the car's back door and remove his two bags, sports/gym bags with the standard Adidas logo on them. Nothing about them screamed "military" or "agent," which was exactly how he liked it.

[coyote_walking]

"Not a problem," Mercy said, almost automatically. She got her purse from the safe and happily shut down her computer, before shutting out the lights and locking the door. She moved onto the garage and waited till Clint and his bags were out before pulling the door down and checking to make sure it was locked. She snapped her fingers and went back to unlock the office door and grab one of her invoices off the edge of her messy desk, scrawling her cell phone number on the edge of it.

She walked it over to the man and offered it. "You can reach me at the shop during business hours - or leave a message if I don't answer. You can also try my cell here or give it to the car company if it's after hours."

[pretendtoneedme]

The paper was pushed at him and Clint accepted it automatically, glancing at the number before ripping a section of it off, giving her a nod as he did so. "Thanks - I showed up late and you didn't chase me off, so. Yeah. Thanks for that. Depending on what the insurance company says, I might not see you again, but I'll keep an eye on everything and make sure you're paid without problem. Sorry to bust up the end of your day like I did." As he spoke, he searched through his pockets to find a pen; once he located it, he clicked the nib out and scrawled his own cell number on the scrap he'd torn off before handing it to her. "If you need to reach me, that's my number - you might not be able to, though, I'm gonna be up in the mountains. If I can ever get there."

The two bags were piled against the outer wall of her shop, waiting to be grabbed, and Clint stepped back out of the way to wait next to them as he dialed directory assistance on his phone. While it was ringing, he glanced up at Mercy one last time and gave her a slightly absent sort of half-smile, polite enough but definitely with other things on his mind. "Have a good night, uh-" A glance down at the paper solved the issue that had just cropped up. "Ms. Thompson."

[coyote_walking]

"You too, Mr...?" She waited for him to fill in his name. "And Mercy's fine. Sure you don't want me to wait? There's pretty much nothing out this way - and nobody here this time of day?"

She figured he wouldn't, but politeness made her ask. That and just that innate wanting to help people out that so often got her into trouble. She shrugged at his response and headed for her car.

"Call me if you can't get a cab," she called out the window and headed off for home.

[pretendtoneedme]

"Clint. Barton, but Clint's fine." Either were fine, and neither were important. If she was going to do a search for him - for some reason - it'd come up with him being labeled as an agent/investigator for the NTSB, and possibly as a former Olympian (2000 games). S.H.I.E.L.D. knew how to cover its tracks - and he had no idea she'd overheard him earlier and had more clues about him than he knew about. One last wave and a nod at her last statement, and then the operator on the other end of the line was live, and he started talking into his phone, searching for the cab he needed.

Clint always paid attention, but admittedly there were still times he paid less attention than others. He's one of the best spies in the world, but a person can't live on red alert all the time, otherwise their brain will burn out. So his senses were still extended, like they always were, but he hadn't moved into the laser-focused all-seeing Agent Mode that had helped him survive so many assignments and even a few assassination attempts directed at him when the truck drove by as he finished his call. That truck was, unless he was completely mistaken (which was always possible, as he scrupulously admitted, but had never actually come to fruition yet), the same one those two bottles had come flying out of on the main street earlier. Even his reflexes hadn't been able to avoid all the glass, and he'd sure thought at the time that there was deliberate malice in that act, but it hadn't seemed like anything else other than two idiots playing a mean prank. Not everything was connected, after all. But in the half-second it took him to pinpoint where he recognized the truck from, Clint sharpened up, standing just a little bit straighter against the wall (even though it wasn't noticeable) and watching carefully without seeming to do so. The truck pulled into the parking lot of an old five-and-dime down the road, looped around, then pulled back out in the way it came to cover the couple hundred feet to Mercy's shop. As the motor slowed down and was turned off, Clint could hear a distinct rattling that showed the likely reason for these idiots to be pulling in. He kept his head down and his focus on his phone as he ended his call, the needed cab on the way, but he was definitely paying attention to the truck.

The two- no, three men that climbed out of the cab were much of a muchness, typical American mutt stock and probably built on the pattern of a lot of small town fairly well off young men. Between late twenties and early thirties, hair ranging from a dusky blond to dark brown, they all wore jeans and t-shirts while one of them had a tarp hat and the other two had ragged baseball caps. Nothing about them should have set the hair on the back of his neck up, but... something did. There seemed to be a feeling that came with them, a cooling of the temperature, something that raised his hackles. Maybe it was because they weren't acting drunk enough to have emptied two liquor bottles in the truck only an hour before. Maybe everything was just too perfect, too fit to their circumstances and mood. Whatever the reason, Clint was tensing for a confrontation before the first one (the driver) even spoke.

"Mechanic still here?" he asked, glancing at the obviously shuttered building. "Seems like our muffler's come loose and we need it put back together."

Clint had never yet met someone from a town this small that couldn't do that repair themselves. Sure, they had to be out there, but three guys together? Impossible. "She left about ten minutes ago. Sorry."

"Shit." The driver turned to kick the truck's front wheel, scuffing his boot along the ground as he talked to his friends - and Clint waited.

The attack was supposed to take him by surprise, but of course it didn't. He was Hawkeye; if he couldn't spot an attack coming right in front of his face, then he deserved to die and Nat would resurrect him just to remove his spine so he couldn't do it again. The knife was expected, but to the second guy's credit Clint didn't see him pull it out; the flat profile helped hide it in his clothes. As Two surged from behind One, Clint automatically ducked and dodged right, the blade missing him by inches as he dropped his phone onto the bags to try and keep it in one piece - he didn't have another. He grabbed that wrist in both hands and yanked, sending the guy shoulder-first into the wall, as the third in the group came at him with a length of pipe, clearly looking to bash him in the head and end this quickly. None of them were amateurs, their movements were all too crisp, too fast, and even though he was better than all of them - there were three of them, they were used to working together, and he had no weapons. Two hadn't dropped his when he'd ran him into the wall, and while he managed to grab the pipe Three had, the younger man wasn't letting go short of getting his hands chopped off, and One was coming at him with the butt of a gun, also going for the head, while Two had taken his slam into the wall in stride and was pulling back to go for him again. They didn't seem to want to hurt him in a way that would leave an obvious trail or require extensive medical work, which gave him a slight advantage (they would have just shot him if their orders were only to kill him), but it was an advantage that wouldn't last for long. Clint allowed his knees to collapse, completely dropping to land in a pile over the bags and barely avoiding hitting his head on the brick wall, lashing out with one foot directly into Three's knee, hearing a snap that left the other man howling in pain but also not badly enough hurt to walk away. One was briefly tangled up with the wounded Three, but he feinted to the right then dodged around to the left and Clint rolled away, trying to get them all in front of him and not to his sides as well.

That cab had to get here soon...!

[coyote_walking]

Mercy couldn't help wondering about the man she'd left in her parking lot. Russian, Borneo, Siberia... And he was pretty smooth about it, but she'd been around too many military or alphabet men not to recognize that he was something beyond the regular guy persona he had. Still, it was none of her business, though the curiosity was driving her crazy.

She was about 3 minutes down the road when she remembered that she hadn't picked up her cellphone from the shelf she'd put it on when she'd nearly broken it (again). It wasn't like she used the thing all that much, but it was something she felt a lot more comfortable having on her.

She saw the truck first. She'd passed it on her way out and absently noticed the noise the muffler was making, making a small bet with herself about how long it would be before it just fell off. Seeing it at her garage made her wonder. The garage was clearly closed. It was late on a Saturday afternoon on a holiday weekend. The likelihood of someone local expecting a shop to be open was next to -

And that's about when she noticed the fight. She slid her Rabbit to the side of the parking lot and reached her hand into the glove compartment to grab her SIG 9mm. She flipped the safety off and racked the slide as she exited the vehicle - leaving it running just in case.

"Hey," she yelled, "Knock it off!"

[pretendtoneedme]

As reinforcements went, a Volkswagon Rabbit was pretty far down his list of chosen saviors. There's just so little about a Rabbit that's cool, and for someone used to large cars, planes, even tanks, a Rabbit... well, it just didn't stack up.

But it's what showed up, and Clint wasn't about to argue the effectiveness of any sort of rescue in this situation. He wasn't overwhelmed, yet, but he knew all it would take would be one lucky shot and he'd be a complete sitting duck, able to be kidnapped to wherever the three men were ordered to take him. Not somewhere too far away, more likely than not, at least not at first. They'd probably made a temporary depot or safehouse to hide out in and keep him hidden while they waited for or arranged transport to... elsewhere. Considering the amount of people around the world who were after S.H.I.E.L.D. in general and him in particular, where exactly he would end up was a question with far too many potential answers, and he really didn't feel like being tortured again.

The garage was on a road not traveled enough that his three assailants could be fairly sure of not being interrupted, and they'd obviously intended to incapacitate him quickly and take him away somewhere else. A stray thought passed through his head as he completed the roll in the bare moment it took for one of his attackers to look up and note the car about why they hadn't tried to drug him quiet, but Clint didn't have the luxury of being able to pay attention to outside possible influences or potential cause-of revelations. The one who looked up was Three, and Clint took immediate action to jam his booted foot into his knee once again, sending up another "snap" and making the man howl and this time - finally - falling to the ground in pain, something completely torn or broken, it didn't matter what since he wouldn't be standing again. Two had launched in as he attacked and gotten a hit on him with his knife, but Clint's proximity to the wall ended up negating a lot of the force and he was able to knock it out of the way with his arm. It left a pretty unsightly gash across his forearm, but that was better than having his head stabbed. One was the only one who seemed to notice the gun Mercy was brandishing - he swore in something that sounded like Spanish, and immediately took off sprinting towards the truck, apparently prepared to abandon his comrades. Three yelled something after him in what was definitely German, something about "get back here and help me you fucking pig!" but Clint wasn't paying full attention to the words. With One and Three both out of his picture, he could concentrate fully on Two, and the man was about to learn exactly why Clint Barton was quite possibly the best agent in S.H.I.E.L.D. history. He was the best shot on the planet, but knives were his second favorite toy.

Clint's hand shot out and grabbed the wrist with the knife, nails and fingertips digging painfully into the tendons and sinews connecting to the hand, and the man yelled and reached to try and claw him off but eventually had to let go with the pain Clint was bringing to bear on him. With only one opponent left he could look up to see that the mechanic - Mercy - was the one who'd returned and she seemed to at least nominally be on his side, and he caught the knife as it fell without even looking at the weapon and backhanded Two across the face with it. Two tumbled off him, dazed, as Clint flipped up to his feet with an ease that spoke of way too much practice, and before he could fight it Clint had cold-cocked him in back of the head with the pommel of the knife at the vulnerable point in his skull, knocking him clear out in half a second. Leaving him to lie and ignoring his own bleeding cut, he quickly moved to pick up the pipe Three had dropped when he'd gotten his knee busted, then moved to stand over him as he lay whimpering on the blacktop in pain. "Why'd you assholes have to go and ruin my vacation," he asked, completely not expecting an answer, and barely winded on top of that. Nat was worse than them any day of the week.

[coyote_walking]

Her Rabbit was quite lovely, thank you very much! And it wasn't everybody who kept an '82 Rabbit purring along happily, so hey!

Mercy watched the guy - Clint - handily take out one of the men, wincing a little at the sound the man's knee made, but hey, he was attacking one of her customers and three against one was never fair. She wasn't quite sure what the man said in Spanish but her German, though rusty, let her know he was swearing at the fleeing man to get back and help.

It only took a moment to fire two shots - one into each tire on the side closest to her - and as the man spun to see who'd taken out his ride she leveled the gun at him and ordered him to freeze. A well-placed warning shot let him know she meant business, so she marched him back over to where Clint had just knocked out the last of the men.

"I'm feeling a little left out," she quipped. "Maybe I should shoot him in the leg or something, just so that I get to wreak a little havoc too."

More seriously, she looked him in the eye. "Somehow I'm guessing you're not wanting me to call the police."

[pretendtoneedme]

If Mercy had any suspicions about Clint's profession, they probably ran the hell away when he didn't even flinch at the gunshots. It was a sound he was far too familiar with himself to pay any attention to, and it wasn't like he was superhuman - dodging bullets was still a no-no. Either he was going to bleed, and probably die, or he wasn't, and luckily it turned out to be the latter.

One had stopped suddenly when Mercy fired, and even though he was holding a gun himself, it was reversed and therefore unable to be shot. Sure, turning a gun around only took a second, but it would undoubtedly be noticed, and instead of three against one it had suddenly become one against two. Apparently the mook didn't have a death wish, because he slowly complied with the movement back in Clint's direction, and when he arrived Clint reached out and took the gun away as well. All of a sudden he'd become a walking armory. "You can hit him with this if you want," he offered, holding out the pipe while he stuffed the gun in his waistband at the small of his back. Unsafe and precarious, but it'd do for the moment. He didn't meet Mercy's eye, instead keeping a close watch - a very close watch, Mercy would undoubtedly notice, as hard and as focused as any hunter she'd ever seen - on the one still on his feet, with half an eye on the one no longer writhing in pain on the ground. "Putting holes in 'em just makes them check out faster. S'not something you should try if you need answers." Bruises and breaks, though - they linger. The pain would hold, never leaving them alone. There were plenty of ways of getting answers if you were willing to be a little unscrupulous, and Clint was willing.

"Police won't be able to deal with these guys - I've got someone who can. You've got duck tape somewhere in there, right?" He wasn't about to get on the phone until all three of them were restrained.

[coyote_walking]

Like she said, some sort of alphabet something guy.

"Thanks for the offer," she said, "But I think I'll pass on the pipe." Mercy gave the guys a once over. "Not interested in wasting my bullets on them either."

She let herself back into the garage, feeling pretty confident that Clint had things under control and came back with the duct tape and her phone tucked safely - or mostly safely - into her back pocket where it belonged. They weren't going to mention the two phones she'd already broken leaving them there, thank you very much.

"I can cover them while you tape them up and call... whoever it is you need to call," she said. Mercy was perfectly capable of immobilizing them, but somehow she felt he wouldn't be confident unless he'd done it himself and that was fine with her. She'd rather be here with a gun than down there within their reach.

[pretendtoneedme]

"Your choice" was all he said in response to her declining the pipe and her line about bullets. His tone of voice was nonchalant, even close to bored, as if he'd forgotten the bleeding gash on his arm - which he hadn't, it just wasn't nearly the most important thing right now. He wasn't gonna lose enough blood to worry about his health before he could get some sort of makeshift bandage on it, and the viscous red liquid trickled down his arm to drip over the knife and to the pavement without him moving a muscle. He didn't mean for it to, but it made him look pretty intimidating - or maybe kind of deranged. Maybe both.

When Mercy came back, the assailant who'd tried to make a run for it was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, arms crossed behind his head in order to prevent him from having any chance at an easy escape; the second guy was still out cold, while the third was still lying pretty still and whimpering. Whatever happened to him after this, he probably wouldn't be able to walk without a limp again. Clint relaxed his vigilance when Mercy appeared again, nodding while still watching the three men. "Sounds good to me." Reaching for the duck tape, he slid the knife into the pocket of his khakis, keeping the pipe in hand, then began binding his attackers, not caring if he dripped blood on them (which was inevitable). To their credit they, or at least the one coherent, didn't flinch when that happened. He pulled One's arms down behind him from their upright-crossed position, keeping them together at the wrist as he wrapped several loops of tape around them, and then moved to bind his ankles similarly. Three was next, his arms and ankles bound as well, and Clint didn't pay any attention to the yelps and screams of pain flew out as he was bound. Then Two, still out and probably remaining that way long enough to let him get a phone call in, and there was nothing that could be done short of bringing in someone else or torture. For as angry as Clint was about having his vacation ruined - because he knew this would make him "active" again - he wasn't going to stoop to that. Just yet.

"How traveled is that road? Is someone gonna drive by and see these guys?" He didn't know the area, so he didn't know if they needed to drag the perps into the garage to keep passersby from getting too curious. He didn't have the authority to block off the road. While he talked, Clint started digging into one of his bags, pulling out a long strip of gauze and a compression bandage to start a little self-doctoring. Phone call next.

[coyote_walking]

"Around here, this time of day on a Saturday afternoon? Not likely," Mercy said, stepping over with the intent of taking the gauze and bandage from him. "Let me do that. You call whoever it is. Then we can decide if we have to move them into my garage," which she really didn't want to have to do, "or if just pulling my car in front of them will work for now."

She held her hand out. "Don't be a wimp. My best friend growing up was a doctor. I can wrap up that gash without a problem. And I have two hands to do it with."

Granted, basic first aid was rarely needed - except for her. The werewolves healed quickly enough that most of the basics weren't needed and some could actually be a problem as they healed right over what was there. Still, Samuel and Charles had made sure she knew the basics and she'd seen enough horrific injuries that the sight of blood didn't bother her. Well, not in any way that would stop her from helping at least.