girlofclay | (no subject)

Betty Barnes is not afraid of heights. That would be ridiculous and incredibly inconvenient, to be a pilot and afraid of heights. She loves heights, always has done. Loves flying, loves being up high feeling the weight of the air against her wings. What she doesn't love, though, is falling. She nearly fell off a train once, in the last war in Germany, rescued only at the last second by her best friend's hand around her wrist.

Steve, who wasn't even a pilot, who learned to fly by watching her, who would later willfully fly into the Arctic Ocean, leaving her alone, angry, and not a little guilty. It had taken a few years after the war for Betty to find her wings again, when Howard and Peggy called her up, said they needed a pilot who could handle new and dangerous aircraft without having to worry about other military commitments, and that was how Bombshell Barnes ended up flying for the brand new SHIELD.

Officially they weren't involved in Korea. Officially Leviathan wasn't either, but officially Leviathan doesn't really exist, so that makes things complicated. But it was as a civilian, officially, that Betty ended up flying near enough to the conflict that when she was shot down - and she hated setting the self destruct on that machine as much as she hated bailing out - and it was a US army rescue chopper that was the last thing she heard before finally blacking out.

The first thing she hears when she wakes up are voices, and she sends up thanks to whichever Saint that looks after covert ops pilots, that they appear to be speaking English.

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Betty bites back on a laugh.

"Is your homemade moonshine at least better than the powdered eggs?"

"That I can promise," he says firmly, and then there's a beat "well, I can promise it'll help you forget about the powdered eggs, at least."

"That will do," she remarks.

"Back in your tent, though? You need me to keep an eye on all these sleepy heads or will it have to wait?"

Hawkeye considers the options for a moment, but as tempted as he is, and as little work as he needs to do right now, he's not quite the type to drink on the job - if any of these boys took a turn for the worse and needed to get back into surgery, he'd need a clear head to do it.

"Let's say tomorrow night?" He offers - that also gives another day to monitor her condition and make sure she actually is getting better and doesn't just look like it.

"Tomorrow night," Betty confirms, shooting him with a single imaginary finger-gun to confirm the agreement. "If I'm up for it and the doctors sign me off for terrible moonshine, I'll be there."

Should she be cheerfulyl agreeing to go back with a doctor to his tent and be plied with booze? Definitely not. But that's partly why she's doing it.

"Oh, don't you worry about that," Hawkeye grins, leaning in close like he's going to tell her a secret "I've got connections, I'll make sure the doctors give you the go-ahead." He winks.

Straightening up, he glances around the room, figuring it's probably time to do another check on everybody's vitals and the rest of that whole 'actually doing his job' part.

"I'll let you get some rest. You need anything else, you just call and I'll come running."

"Aye, Captain," she says, ripping out a salute she's been casually mocking for years, and settles down again. She's almost instantly bored, but then sometimes boredom is also a blessing, and she decides to enjoy the semi-peace. Eventually, listening to Hawkeye do the rounds, she does drift off to sleep.

The next day would be boring as hell if she didn't manage to sweet talk one of the nurses (and a senior one at that - it's nice to have powerful women on your side) into acquiring a book for her, and then spending a long time warning her explicitly off Dr Pierce.

So when evening comes, and she finally gets signed off for ambulant recovery, she pulls on a borrowed shirt and pants and heads out to find this "swamp."

It's not hard to find - quite apart from being right in the middle of the camp, there's a familiar figure in a hawaiian shirt lounging on a lawn chair outside holding two martini glasses.

"There's the only Bombshell I want to see in camp," he calls out cheerfully when he catches sight of her, holding out one of the glasses in her direction "your table awaits madam."

Betty almost laughs at the sight, but decides to settle on a laugh as she strolls over, removing a hand from a pocket to accept the glass, with a bit of a bow like she's asking him for his hand to dance.

"I should tell you I've been explicitly warned against you Dr. Pierce," she says. "Apparently you're a menace to society and a threat to my honour."

If he can find her honour that is.

"I have heard it said," he agrees mildly, as though she'd given him a compliment instead of an indictment.

"I'll have to tell Margaret her warnings are getting less effective." He adds in an amused tone "Would you like to sit inside or outside this evening?"

"If I have to look at a canvas roof for any longer I'm going to go crazier than I already am," she says seriously. "Don't get up."

Fortunately there is a chair right by him, like he's already set it up for two, and she joins him in that.

"Hooch is for drinking, not sleeping in."

"And it's such a lovely evening." he agrees, waving his glass at the overcast sky - it's plenty warm enough to sit outside, yes, but it would be nicer if they were looking at stars rather than clouds. Still, she's not wrong, it's better than canvas.

"So, now that you're feeling better, how much longer will the 4077 be graced with your delightful company?" he asks pleasantly - he assumes it's probably not long, the army isn't exactly fond of convalescing.

"You know, I don't know," Betty admits. "I went in to see the little guy, called USAF, they say they'll send someone to pick me up when they've got someone spare."

Which doesn't bode well, but also means that Peggy's scrambling to rescue the mission, get Betty a replacement pland and get it to Korea. So she's stuck waiting for that.

"Oh, well that is good news." Hawkeye grins, lifting his glass in a 'cheers' motion.

"For us, anyway. Not so much for you." he adds cheerfully.

He suspects she might actually chafe at being stuck here, especially when she seems to have healed up (remarkably quickly), but he hopes they can joke about it and keep the mood light.

Sometimes that's all you can do.

Yeah, he's read her right. Betty is not looking forward to being stuck, but she'll make the best of it.

Starting with the gin...

...which she gags on as soon as she takes a sip.

"Oh wow, this is disgusting."