Worse. It's people soup. Like two diffusion zones are trying to form on top of each other. People are melded half into buildings. Ground's soft. Buildings are soft. You spend any time there, you start melting into shit too.
Where are you relative to literally anything besides just fringes? Compass direction, distance from city If you're texting me from soup I applaud your ability to spell under the circumstances.
I didn't know they'd be here. Happy little accident. Bunch of people with good intentions are showing up trying to save people from the soup, like you can save a man that's got half his brain and both his lungs merged with a steel support beam. Good samaritans are practically catnip for them.
Don't worry sweetheart, you know how much I love your bow. Don't have eyes for any other bow but yours.
( As it turns out, it's a good thing Clint didn't go home. What happens occurs sometime after he intervened for some other asshole with a bow — turns out he inadvertently bow-cheated on his bow-work wife.
Anyway, the problem isn't with the raiders; Clint will find their corpses sinking into the pavement, halfway melded into blacktop, road lines on their skin, fingertips jutting out at odd angles like shark fins. They've been lying in place for a while.
It makes for a nice breadcrumb trail to find Mister Big Bad Punisher, sunk up to his knees around the side of a building, his back pressed against a wall, and both hands bringing down what looks like a crowbar in a painstaking effort to bust up the sidewalk around his calves. He's put a pretty good dent in it, but he's sweating his ass off. The problem is less about his stamina, though, and more about the fact that being a one man job means he's sinking just about as fast as he's digging himself out. )
It takes time to track Frank down, because 'the Fringes' is not the most pinpoint accurate location, but it's somewhere to start from. The forums help, a little bit. When people start capslocking about bodies melded into the buildings, the ground, between things, along with any supposed spottings of raiders, that helps narrow it down further.
When he sees the vehicles in the distance stopped, some even halfway sunk in, he decides to stop even further back and carefully walk.
It's not great, feeling like he has to tiptoe on solid ground in case any given spot decides it's actually a quicksand pit of fuck you that's going to get his stupid ass caught as well. He tries to keep off the ground, alighting on the stuck vehicles and other objects, though he knows even that is unlikely to save him from getting sucked in. The bodies--what's left of bodies--do in fact lead him to the grunting effort of Frank trying to dig himself out of a sidewalk that looks both painfully solid and like it's trying to swallow him up.
Okay. So don't stand there, maybe, is what he's picking up.
He comes at the problem from above. Grapple arrow still works like a charm, and soon he's working his way down alongside Frank and really really hoping the hook doesn't meld into the roof or his feet don't slip into the wall. One problem at a time.]
What do you need me to do?
[Which is a much nicer and more urgent thing to say than making any smartass comments about Frank soup, which, rest assured, he is thinking about.]
( This is something he'll appreciate about Clint for a long time — that he knows when to be serious. That when it matters, he's a consummate professional, a seasoned soldier. Starting things off with what can I do instead of some bullshit commentary which Frank already knows is gonna come later. He reaffirms in a single line why he's a good choice for a partner, and it's enough that Frank will start to reconsider his strategy of lone wolf'ing it next time.
But for now— )
I got a sledgehammer in the back of the van. You get me that, I can break this up, and then it's just dirt.
( Between the two of them, they can haul his ass out of dirt, he thinks. It's just the inches of cement between here and there. )
[He has to make sure Frank is alive to give him shit for 'I'm not gonna get souped' and getting souped. That is priority number one. Clint can be a lil shit with the best of them, but when it matters (and it usually does), he is to the job.
After what they've been through, if he just happens to lose Frank to some fucking diffusion zone freak accident, he can't see the end result of that reaction being a happy one. (And who in the hell could've seen that coming, that he'd come to rely so heavily on the god damn Punisher?)
He nods once, ascends back up his line. Clint's gone for many long minutes. It must feel like forever, the time it takes for him to find and get to the van as efficiently as he can while touching as few surfaces as possible, to come back the way he came because at least he knows it's not quicksand soup while hauling a sledgehammer in his quiver.
But at last, the hammer slams into the concrete beside Frank, dropping it being a quicker way to get it to him rather than wait for Clint to come back down. And obviously, obviously he's not planning on letting Frank do it all by himself.
There's a tentative touch of his foot to the sidewalk by Frank, like it's going to soup him up as well, but it feels solid enough. Keeps the line hooked to his belt to haul himself up if that ever changes, but he alights onto the ground, and as Frank grabs the sledgehammer, he takes the crowbar from his hands and joins in the effort.
It's definitely less efficient for the job needing done. That Frank was managing is actually pretty impressive. But he can leave all that for later, when Frank is out of the god damn soup.]
( The sledgehammer hits the ground, and Frank wastes no time scooping it up. In just the brief minutes he's been gone, Frank's sunk another three or four inches into the earth. There's no time to fuck around. Clint gets a front-row seat to the Frank Castle show, a firsthand view at how good this particular man is at swinging a hammer.
He circles it around over his head and brings it slamming down into the sidewalk with devastating ferocity. The second hit comes with the added bonus of a somewhat feral-sounding, vaguely animalistic grunt of effort — and so does the third, and the fourth, never slowing, never faltering, muscles working despite how hard he's already pushed them trying to crowbar himself out.
Eventually, the concrete's busted and it's just the dirt to contend with. He throws the hammer over to the side, manages a hoarse — )
Can you-
( And holds out a hand; give him a tug, buddy, he could use a little leverage. With the tension and the pull-weight on that bowstring, he's well aware Clint's no slouch himself. )
[It isn't like he had any doubts that Frank could be a machine; anyone can if pushed to it. But the way he attacks the concrete without falter, without hesitation, without slowing from exhaustion or needing to catch his breath, is...impressive. Gets a hell of a lot more done than a crowbar, that's for sure. Man's got a drive to survive, have to grant him that.
He can see the way that even now, into the dirt underneath, Frank still seems to be sinking, the quicksand, the fucking soup, still hungry to make him a permanent part of the landscape. Neither tool is any good for digging, incidentally. Clint foregoes the offered hand and grips his arm instead, one on the forearm, one on the upper arm. Feet planted on terra firma, at least for the moment, and pulling.]
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It's people soup.
Like two diffusion zones are trying to form on top of each other. People are melded half into buildings. Ground's soft. Buildings are soft. You spend any time there, you start melting into shit too.
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Where are you
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Where are you relative to literally anything besides just fringes?
Compass direction, distance from city
If you're texting me from soup I applaud your ability to spell under the circumstances.
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Why do I get the feeling if I tell you, you're gonna come to soup?
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( For now. )
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Bunch of people with good intentions are showing up trying to save people from the soup, like you can save a man that's got half his brain and both his lungs merged with a steel support beam.
Good samaritans are practically catnip for them.
Don't worry sweetheart, you know how much I love your bow. Don't have eyes for any other bow but yours.
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See you soon babe.
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( As it turns out, it's a good thing Clint didn't go home. What happens occurs sometime after he intervened for some other asshole with a bow — turns out he inadvertently bow-cheated on his bow-work wife.
Anyway, the problem isn't with the raiders; Clint will find their corpses sinking into the pavement, halfway melded into blacktop, road lines on their skin, fingertips jutting out at odd angles like shark fins. They've been lying in place for a while.
It makes for a nice breadcrumb trail to find Mister Big Bad Punisher, sunk up to his knees around the side of a building, his back pressed against a wall, and both hands bringing down what looks like a crowbar in a painstaking effort to bust up the sidewalk around his calves. He's put a pretty good dent in it, but he's sweating his ass off. The problem is less about his stamina, though, and more about the fact that being a one man job means he's sinking just about as fast as he's digging himself out. )
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It takes time to track Frank down, because 'the Fringes' is not the most pinpoint accurate location, but it's somewhere to start from. The forums help, a little bit. When people start capslocking about bodies melded into the buildings, the ground, between things, along with any supposed spottings of raiders, that helps narrow it down further.
When he sees the vehicles in the distance stopped, some even halfway sunk in, he decides to stop even further back and carefully walk.
It's not great, feeling like he has to tiptoe on solid ground in case any given spot decides it's actually a quicksand pit of fuck you that's going to get his stupid ass caught as well. He tries to keep off the ground, alighting on the stuck vehicles and other objects, though he knows even that is unlikely to save him from getting sucked in. The bodies--what's left of bodies--do in fact lead him to the grunting effort of Frank trying to dig himself out of a sidewalk that looks both painfully solid and like it's trying to swallow him up.
Okay. So don't stand there, maybe, is what he's picking up.
He comes at the problem from above. Grapple arrow still works like a charm, and soon he's working his way down alongside Frank and really really hoping the hook doesn't meld into the roof or his feet don't slip into the wall. One problem at a time.]
What do you need me to do?
[Which is a much nicer and more urgent thing to say than making any smartass comments about Frank soup, which, rest assured, he is thinking about.]
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But for now— )
I got a sledgehammer in the back of the van. You get me that, I can break this up, and then it's just dirt.
( Between the two of them, they can haul his ass out of dirt, he thinks. It's just the inches of cement between here and there. )
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After what they've been through, if he just happens to lose Frank to some fucking diffusion zone freak accident, he can't see the end result of that reaction being a happy one. (And who in the hell could've seen that coming, that he'd come to rely so heavily on the god damn Punisher?)
He nods once, ascends back up his line. Clint's gone for many long minutes. It must feel like forever, the time it takes for him to find and get to the van as efficiently as he can while touching as few surfaces as possible, to come back the way he came because at least he knows it's not quicksand soup while hauling a sledgehammer in his quiver.
But at last, the hammer slams into the concrete beside Frank, dropping it being a quicker way to get it to him rather than wait for Clint to come back down. And obviously, obviously he's not planning on letting Frank do it all by himself.
There's a tentative touch of his foot to the sidewalk by Frank, like it's going to soup him up as well, but it feels solid enough. Keeps the line hooked to his belt to haul himself up if that ever changes, but he alights onto the ground, and as Frank grabs the sledgehammer, he takes the crowbar from his hands and joins in the effort.
It's definitely less efficient for the job needing done. That Frank was managing is actually pretty impressive. But he can leave all that for later, when Frank is out of the god damn soup.]
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He circles it around over his head and brings it slamming down into the sidewalk with devastating ferocity. The second hit comes with the added bonus of a somewhat feral-sounding, vaguely animalistic grunt of effort — and so does the third, and the fourth, never slowing, never faltering, muscles working despite how hard he's already pushed them trying to crowbar himself out.
Eventually, the concrete's busted and it's just the dirt to contend with. He throws the hammer over to the side, manages a hoarse — )
Can you-
( And holds out a hand; give him a tug, buddy, he could use a little leverage. With the tension and the pull-weight on that bowstring, he's well aware Clint's no slouch himself. )
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He can see the way that even now, into the dirt underneath, Frank still seems to be sinking, the quicksand, the fucking soup, still hungry to make him a permanent part of the landscape. Neither tool is any good for digging, incidentally. Clint foregoes the offered hand and grips his arm instead, one on the forearm, one on the upper arm. Feet planted on terra firma, at least for the moment, and pulling.]
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🎀