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One
Kate’s nodding off during her fourth episode of Dog Cops when she decides it’s time to head home. She wants to end up asleep at her own apartment instead of on Clint’s musty second-hand couch. Kate gathers her keys and her cell phone before finishing off the last of the coffee. She opens the door expecting to see a drizzle of rain and the vastness of the night sky. Instead she’s greeted with the sight of a familiar redhead. Natasha has her bright red hair up in a ponytail. She stands outside the door with a pizza box resting on her hip. She looks as flustered as a formerly tortured, ex-soviet assassin turned spy for the good guys can be.
By which Kate really means, not at all flustered.
“Uh, hey…Natasha,” Kate greets, saying each syllable slowly. Because they may fight for the same cause but being on a first name basis with the Russian spy who could kill her ten different ways with a paper clip is still a little new, “Clint’s not here. He’s…uh…out. Probably killing mobsters that took over a playground or something.”
Natasha smirks, one side of her lip curling up to reveal a faint dimple.
“He’s on his way up,” She says.
And then Natasha’s pushing into the doorway, flicking on the lights with her shoulder, like she knows her way around the place. Kate pretends not to be shocked that Natasha knows how to find the light switch in pitch black and knows that you have to press against it for a second because the wiring is weird.
Just how long, exactly, has this been going on?
Then there’s Clint. He appears on the doorstep looking like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He holds a bottle of something cheap and alcoholic in one hand while the other ducks behind his neck in that move that means ‘pwrease don’t yell at me’.
“I paused my episode. Don’t lose my place,” Kate says, instead of, ‘so the Russian, again huh? What’s going on there, hot shot?’
She pushes past him as he says, “Sure thing, Katie-Kate.”
If Kate’s sitting in her car for a minute watching through the window as Natasha falls onto the couch and pours herself a glass of wine, it isn’t because she’s curious or overly protective but only because the engine on her brand new car sticks every once and again. She wants to let it warm up for a minute before she pulls out onto the street in the rain.
Two
It’s been fourteen days since their awkward run in at Clint’s apartment when Kate runs into Clint, at the Avengers Mansion with Natasha. Kate just sees the back of him as he’s walking out the front door. It’s almost two o'clock in the morning. The list of plausible explanations, other than sex, for why he could be there is well, completely blank.
Kate can’t help but wonder why it’s worth it. Natasha breaks Clint's heart. He buries the engagement ring in the bottom of his sock drawer. Clint eventually gets over the heartbreak, as much as he can. The insecurity still clings to his body like a second skin. He kind of sort of dates another girl and now this, again.
What the hell is he thinking?
I mean, really.
Three
Kate wouldn’t say that this is the most awkward moment of her life, because reasons, but she will say that it makes the top ten. She thinks, it’s not every day you see a Russian spy, in her underwear making stir fry , but the list of marks that could have is just too long. The way Natasha raises her eyebrow when Kate walks in without knocking says ‘What of it Hawkeye?’ (though Kate added that last) and not ‘Oh my goodness I’m so sorry I’m indisposed. Just give me a minute.” So Kate is fairly certain it’s happened before.
“I uh…have tape…for the new trick arrows.” Kate explains, feeling a little like Clint when she has to force her hand from creeping up the back of her neck. She pushes her sunglasses back into her hair and stands her ground, because she isn’t the one in her underwear, thank you very much.
Natasha nods, a sharp move of chin and red hair, and then yells, “Barton, Hawkeye’s here.”
Hawkeye is here. That’s right , Kate thinks rather smugly. Hawkeye is here. She neglects to compute just how awkward it’s about to get.
Enter Clint Barton in still unbuttoned jeans and a purple t-shirt that looks like it’s spent it’s fair share of time on the floor. Kate can see the instant that it clicks, that he’s been caught, that this is weird. His hand is instantly on the back of his neck.
He ducks his head and says “Lookin – I mean Cooking, COOKING good Natasha… or smelling… it loo – smells. Good.”
and,
“Natasha got caught in the… rain and her clothes they’re… in the dry… er," in quick succession only to be foiled by Natasha’s snort.
“What’d ya need Katie-Kate?” Clint asks.
Kate almost laughs, “Way to be casual.”
“I hate you.”
Natasha does laugh. Her laugh is a deep, round chuckle that fits her. She looks easy in that moment, almost capable of love. Instead of an engagement ruining harpy. She bends down and pets Lucky, scratching between his ears thoroughly. And then winks at Clint. In that moment it makes sense. The kind of sense it made when people created the atomic bomb and didn’t understand radiation.
Duck and Cover.
Four
“SO. Are you two just having sex or is this like a thing ?” Kate asks bluntly, three days later, with her morning coffee.
Clint chokes on his.
“What?” Kate inquires, “You really thought I was going to pass that up?”
Clint shrugs and goes for the bow, notching an arrow as he faces off the target.
The wire tenses.
Back muscles tighten and lock.
Slows his breathing.
Exhale.
Relaxes his hand.
“Either.”
Bull’s eye.
“Both.”
And another.
The wire tenses.
Back muscles tighten and lock.
Breathing labors.
Hand jerks.
“Or neither.”
Wide to the right.
The wire tenses.
Back muscles tighten and lock.
Is he breathing?
Hand spazzes.
“I don’t know”
Wide to the left.
Classic overcompensation.
Kate shoots one through the arrow that marked his first bulls eye, “maybe you should figure that out hawk-guy.”
Five
A week later, Kate’s feeding Lucky a slice of day old, cheese pizza when Clint emerges from the bedroom. He’s on the phone. The purple phone cord is pulled taught from the kitchen to the other end of the room. Clint’s weight transfers quickly from one foot to the other and back again.
“Where was the back-up?” He asks.
Lucky, having finished his pizza, bows down on the ground.
“That bad, huh.” It isn’t really a question, “Damn it. Bobbi. You know I’ll be there. Just… uh… give me a minute.”
What was THAT about?
“Yeah.”
Kate can't believe conversations between Clint and Bobbi ever ended in 'I love you too'.
The rotary phone was vaulted across the room where it spun too quickly, landing upside down but still basically in its holder. Clint ducks into the bedroom with a heavy stride and Kate wonders if he’s even seen her at all. He probably has, she decides. He’s not new to seeing her in his apartment unannounced. He sees everything. He just chooses to ignore most of it. Like the engagement ring still in the bottom dresser drawer. Or how lost he is over the Russian spy that keeps occupying his bed.
“I need you to drive me somewhere.” He says at last.
He’s clad in a purple V-neck and jeans with purple Chuck Taylors and a black leather jacket she hasn’t seen before.
His face looks grave.
Five A
Ten minutes and forty traffic violations later, Kate follows him into Avengers Mansion. Past Jarvis. Up the stairs. Third star to the right, or some silly story she vaguely remembers from childhood, about a bunch of lost boys who banded together to save their world.
It’s almost relevant.
Clint types a code into the fancy key pad on the outside of the door and lets the scanner recognize his retinas. He flinches over something Kate doesn’t quite catch. The door pops open and he flicks at the top of the frame causing something metal to retract. Kate doesn’t even want to know. Clint steps inside.
“You should wait out here.”
Kate does wait because who knows what else is hiding in there. She can still see inside. The bed is just out of view. A rack of very formidable weaponry is visible beside the window. There is a chair and a low table.
Kate sees more weapons: a compact bow and a pile of well fitted arrows. Because everyone has those just lying around. The sentiment almost gets to Kate.
Okay.
It gets to her.
But it’s still going to end badly , she thinks.
Kate looks again. She sees things that can be used as weapons. A plant, which Kate has a feeling is poisonous.
Clint lays a few items of clothing on the bed, jeans, pajama pants, a black camisole, and a green, off-the-shoulder shirt. He rushes to the bathroom and emerges with a full, black, toiletries case. He folds the clothing more neatly than Kate has ever seen him do before.
Though Clint doesn’t often deal with his dirty laundry.
Times are a changin', Kate supposes.
Clint packs the clothing in a black duffle bag. He adds sneakers. He pulls off the bed’s duvet cover and carries it in his arms as he heads back out the door. The door locks, automatically with a thud behind them.
Five B
They’re at SHIELD base medical fifteen minutes and even more traffic violations later. Because Clint was close to losing his shit and hyperventilating damn it. They're walking through the glass doors when it really sinks in that they are there to see Natasha. Kate knows she should have realized it sooner. Here’s to more awkward witnessing of a doomed romance.
Then it becomes something different.
Kate gasps before she can stop it. In her mind, Natasha has always been invincible and invincible people aren’t asleep in a hospital bed in worst shape than Clint after a 20 story tumble. Her leg is in a black cast, her wrist in a brace. There is a bandage around her head, multiple stitches across her shoulder, and she wheezes like her ribs are broken.
Her hair even seems a little less red.
The ex-wife is sitting in a chair in the corner. Kate wants to laugh but stifles it because of the situation. Do all Clint’s ex-but sometimes current lovers hang around together like some top secret Bunco group? I mean, really.
“She’ll be okay Clint. You all always are.” Bobbi says a little sadly. Her voice is quiet with a hidden bite.
She leaves the room and Kate is left to watch as Clint walks to the bed. He pulls a chair up real close to it. He covers Natasha with the duvet.
“She can’t stand the cold”.
“That’s ironic.”
Five C
They're back in Bed-Stuy. Kate will say that she is only there to make sure Clint ingests something other than coffee but really, Clint and Natasha have gotten her curious and she wants to see how this goes down.
Clint had rather unceremoniously plucked Natasha from her hospital bed the moment she asked him. Natasha sounded delusional and asked him in what sounded like Russian. Clint had removed her from the hospital, outside of doctors purview, and delivered her back to Bed Stuy.
Rather Kate had been the delivery driver while Clint held Natasha in the back seat butchering what Kate suspected was supposed to be a Russian lullaby and not an imitation of a cat dying.
Stark had delivered an IV pole, oxygen tank, and handy-dandy-itsy-bitsy, yes that’s the technical term, medical monitor that he got from god knows where, in between eyebrow raises and various forms of “what the hell is happening with you and the soviet, Barton?” to which Kate said, “my thoughts exactly.”
Natasha wheezes so loudly Kate can hear her no matter how loud she turns up Dog Cops. Clint won’t leave Natasha’s bed side but Kate hears what sounds like throwing knives hitting the wall.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Then silence.
“Clint?” It’s Natasha’s rasp.
“Still right here. I’m not going anywhere.” Kate hears Clint manage.
“Good.”
What is my life right now? Kate thinks when she feels just a little bit hopeful that this love story won’t end like Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or any of Clint’s other relationships. The fallout, she chants, isn’t there always fall out? Kate is pretty sure there can’t be love stories for people like them.
Six
“Right there. Just like that.”
Kate hears Natasha and then a low, “oh.” from Clint.
It doesn’t sound like sex. Kate really hopes she didn’t walk in on that again. She flops down on the couch to wait for whatever actually is happening to end. It continues.
“Okay, this looks bad.” Clint says, “It’s just Incase there’s a…. ninja or an intruder. At night.”
“An intruder in the middle of the night. Really, Barton? You’d use your bow or one of the eight knives tucked between here and the night stand. Not the glock hidden under the pillow...on the other side of the bed. You hate firearms."
"I don't hate them I just - "
He trails off and there is silence; in her mind’s eye, Kate can see Clint’s hand scratching at his neck.
“You want me to stay the night.”
“I wouldn’t hate it.” Clint says too quickly. Then, like he's summoning up courage, "You could stay all the nights."
Kate wants to face-palm.
“Thank you.” It’s soft and raspy, almost un-eaves-drop-able but the accompanying wheeze says it’s Natasha.
Kate hears Clint say, “Always.”
Seven
“Have you figured it out, yet?” Kate asks. She isn’t referring to the trick arrow tips they are currently trying to attach to shafts.
He looks younger, a touch more confident when he says, “Yes.”
“And?” Kate pushes, managing to lock one arrow tip into place.
“We’re giving it uh… another go round or whatever… we’re… going steady.”
“How old are you?” Kate asks though she’s sure the phrase has rubbed off from Steve.
“Stories like this can work.” He looks like he believes it.
Kate rolls her eyes. “Right. The Soviet and the Circus Performer, boom de dah, happily ever after. Totally normal.”
Clint chuckles, the sound is much easier to pull from him than usual.
Kate doesn’t know what to say. It’s a little unreal. The whole situation. It’s weird. Her best friend and mentor lining up to get his heart broken again. A niggling voice in her head says maybe he won’t. Maybe it can work.
There are moments she’s seen where they're good together. Like when Natasha was recovering and she leaned into him when she walked and he kissed her forehead. Or when he woke her up from a nightmare at medical and easily disarmed her before climbing on the bed and pulling her into his lap. There was a time just after she could hobble around successfully that Natasha taught Lucky to fetch and then her smile split out of her smirk when she saw how happy it made Clint.
The fallout?
Kate shakes her head and concentrates on her task. She digs in the bucket of mixed arrow tips, laying one out for herself before she hands one to Clint.
“Why?” she asks, cutting off a strip of masking tape.
“Because. Boomerangs.” He waves the arrow in the air, “They always come back in the end.”