#jrbarton

“I’m not even sorry.” 

Phil sighed and slowly dropped down to sit next to Clint on the hard metal cot of his cell in the brig. 

“I didn’t think you would be,” Phil replied as he eyed the double set of flexicuffs keeping Clint’s wrists tethered. Whoever had arrested  him had apparently been smart enough to know regular cuffs were a waste of time. 

Without another word, Phil reached for the folding knife he kept in his boot and cut the cuffs off. 

Clint flexed his wrists and gave him a sideways grin. 

“I could have done that,” he said with a grin. “But I didn’t want to push my luck quite yet.” 

“I thought they searched you,” Phil replied, folding his knife and putting it away.

Clint scoffed. 

“Phil, you think some flunky security guard, SHIELD trained or not, would be able to find all my weapons?” 

Phil rolled his eyes. 

“Do I even want to know how many you still have on you?” 

Clint just grinned. 

“So you’re still in here because? What? You thought you could use the down time?” Phil asked, motioning around the low security cell. Clint, by all rights, could have been out of here on his own hours ago. 

Clint shrugged a shoulder and rubbed at his wrists. 

“I distracted from the search enough already. I didn’t want them wasting resources tracking me down when they should be looking for her.” 

Phil nodded but didn’t quite buy it.  

“McGuire is okay, by the way. The concussion you gave him was a minor one.”

“I must be losing my touch.” 

“Why did you hit him, Clint?” Phil asked quietly. “He’s the base director here. Fury is going to be...”

“Furious?” Clint interrupted with a smirk. 

Phil narrowed his eyes. Clint was up to something. There was no way he was this calm. Natasha was missing for God’s sake. There was no way Clint was content to just sit in this cell and not look for her. 

“What are you planning?” Phil asked suspiciously. 

Clint gave him an innocent glance. 

“Clint...”

“Plausible deniability, Phil, it’s a wonderful thing.” 

Phil sighed. 

“Is anyone else going to end up in the infirmary?” 

“No,” Clint assured, but then added in a steely voice, “As long as they stay out of my way.” 

A sharp knock came at the cell door and Phil stood. His time was up. He paused at the door and glanced back at his agent who was still sitting entirely too casually on the metal cot. 

“When do you need the guard monitoring the cameras distracted?” Phil asked. 

Clint glanced down at his watch then back up. 

“In 7 minutes.” 

Phil nodded. 

40 - “Do people know you write fanfiction?” - my immediate family knows. My husband knows writing is my catharsis and has been encouraging me a lot lately to take time to write because stress has been my middle name the past few months. He’s deployed right now though so between 2 kids, my side hustle job, and life time to write is minimal. I don’t tell many people outside that though. I tell people I love to write and if they pursue the subject (a lot of people don’t because people are people) but if they pursue the subject and seem genuinely interested, I’ll tell them. 

*GIVES YOU ALL THE HUGS and whispers “i love you friend”*

19 - “Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?” - I’d really like to do a sequel to Cairo where Clint comes across Reyes again. (Reyes was one of Alpha team and he slipped away before everything went down ;) ) 

27 - “Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?” - For multi-chapter stories, I 100% do an outline. Otherwise I’d have dropped plot points and plot holes all over the place. For one shots, though, I typically write by the seat of my pants. 

32 - “Are any of your characters based on real people?” - no, not yet. Maybe good because a lot of my characters are murdery lol

34 - “What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?” - i’ve gotten really lucky to have amazing readers that are always so supportive and loving. I did have someone once, though, blast my version of Thor. Told me that it was so bad, it was unreadable and that they absolutely could not stand to read another word. *shrugs* to each their own I guess? 

…and the angst goes on…

Ha. I just asked @aggie2011whoop those same questions:

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

ENDLESSLY.  No, seriously.  Every time I start working on a chapter, I go over what I already wrote, and tweak ...  Every. Friggin'. Time.  And when it’s done, I go over the whole thing.  Again.  And add in all the things that should be there, now I know where the story went.  And delete unnecessary words and sentences and parentheses and ellipses and extraneous observations that sounded cute at the time but just clutter things up.  Then I send it to my faithful beta(s) and put in 90% of the changes they suggest, because they are usually just and right, and then I go over it AGAIN and ...  so now you know why I don’t post very often!

Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate?

I begin with the plot, almost always. I usually have some overarching concept I want to explore (like with Cairo, I wanted to explore the idea of Phil thinking Clint was dead and Clint having to rescue himself. And with Not So Ancient History, I want to explore Barney coming back into Clint’s life) And usually within that, I have certain scenes already in mind that I want to work in. (like the reunion scene in Cairo) I have scenes mapped out for all my unwritten stories at any given time. (which is why I can work those flashbacks into stories)

Oh, sometimes I begin with the title!  Like, I walked out of Iron Man 3 knowing I would write a story called “Second Mouse” - all I needed was a plot that would make the title work …  Ditto with “Off the Shoulder of Orion,” “Rain on the Scarecrow”, “Diamonds and Rust” and “Seventh Crow”.  

I also usually have a mood for a given piece before I start writing - almost like a colour - and an underlying concept or theme.  Often the title will give me those, and once I have those things, I know I can write.  Everything else will fall into place (eventually…).  “Locust Wind” started out as a hokey comedic piece that I was hopelessly stuck on until I heard U2′s Rattle and Hum on my way home in the car, and knew I had my title – necessitating a 180 degree shift in the mood.  (Only the first chapter of the original draft remains.)

The characters (at least the main ones) tend to be a given; the minor characters show up as necessary, at times uninvited.  And plot is something I usually will have in broad strokes, but the detail often happens as I write.