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Three things happen in quick succession. A fist, curled and bloody, making a beeline for his face; his phone scattering across the road and, obviously, rolling straight down the drain; and a muffled, “Oh, shit,” just before he passes out right there in between a beaten up hatchback and a sedan. Clint Barton, everyone.
His phone’s riding storm-water and god-knows-what straight for the harbor when the text comes through from Natasha.
S.H.I.E.L.D. compromised. Down, actually. Requesting backup, Barton.
Later she might make a joke about getting by just fine without him, and while true, that doesn’t really answer the question of where he was when his life was being spectacularly dismantled all the way over in Washington, D.C.
The answer is: passed out on a road in New York somewhere while some mob dudes - which mob he has no idea, since he couldn’t really hear what they said, and he seems to be collecting enemies at an alarming rate these days - nick his stuff and leave him there, a kick to the ribs for good measure.
*
He wakes later to: “Hey, aren’t you like, an Avenger or something?”
Clint can only open one eye for the moment, but at first glance the girl is purple. With a bit more consciousness on his side he can see she’s in maybe her early twenties, with long dark hair tucked under an unreasonably large sunhat. She’s also holding his bow. Perfectly. Maybe he’s hallucinating.
“Or something,” he says.
“I think you dropped these a block back,” she says, drawing an arrow and aiming for a nearby utility pole. “You know, I haven’t done this since summer camp back in middle school, but I gotta tell you, I was a pretty good shot!”
Clint only manages an alarmed ‘Hey!’ before the arrow hits the post, smack bang in the middle. Apparently, he needn’t have worried. His back tweaks a little from throwing up his hand in protest and he winces.
“Bullseye,” she says, turning back to him. “Practically an Avenger, what do you reckon?”
“Who the hell are you?” The sun’s bright on his face. Cars stream past. She grins and offers him a hand.
“Kate Bishop. At your service.” It’s a real shit-eating grin, this time.
*
“You’re not coming home with me.”
They’re in a cramped fast food joint, eating soggy burgers and fries while Clint tries to fix what is probably a fracture with some band aids. He’ll head to HQ later, get properly fixed up.
(This is patently untrue, since HQ is doing a good job of getting demolished, but a waterproof phone’s no good if the water it’s in is miles away, and Clint has been kind of preoccupied trying to work out if eating burgers with Kate Bishop is going to land him in a shitstorm with some Upper East Side parents.
Hint: it’s not.
He also doesn’t have a television at the moment. Something about a stray cat and some drones. Don’t ask.
In short: he has no idea.)
“I saved your life,” she says, waving her burger in his face, sauce dripping onto the table between them.
“Pretty sure you nicked my bow, actually,” he responds, eying his gear which is most definitely sitting on her side of the table, quiver leaning on the cracked vinyl seat.
“Details,” she says, making a dismissive gesture with the burger. Clint feels kind of nauseous. “Anyway,” she continues, pausing to take a bite, “I need your help.”
“Do you.”
“We can’t talk about it here.” Obviously. “And I’m crashing at a friend’s house at the moment, and trust me she’s not gonna want you bleeding on her couch, wow. So. Your house.”
“Why me?” he asks, face dropping into his hands. “And you’re not coming home with me, what are you, seventeen?”
“I’m twenty. Anyway. Thor is like some kind of nordic-space-alien-warrior, so. Not subtle. Ditto the Hulk. Iron Man is kind of a dick, as far as I can tell, and he can fly, so he’s not exactly the easiest guy to follow around-”
“Wait. Stop. Follow around? How long have you been following me around?” Clint asks, voice suddenly serious, reluctant enjoyment quickly replaced with suspicion and something way more calculated than you’d expect from a guy who kind of looks like a walking, talking bruise. His hand hovers around his hip where there is usually a gun. Not loaded, but - You dummy, he thinks - she could be anyone. The gun’s not there. Mob. Right. Shit.
She looks embarrassed. “Um,” is all she says to start with, and if she notices how prickly he’s gotten all of a sudden, she doesn’t mention it, picking up a french fry from the bowl instead and shoving it unceremoniously into her mouth. “Everything got a bit screwed up, see. I figured writing a letter to Avengers tower-”
“You know we don’t actually all live together, right?” Clint interrupts.
“-probably wasn’t gonna get me the kind of help I need,” she continues, shooting him a conspiratorial look and a wink. “Sure you don’t. Anyway. You fall out of buildings and get in trouble enough to be kind of easy to find, sorry to say, Hawkeye.”
Clint relaxes a bit. He’s still not taking her to his place, but something about her seems trustworthy, earnest enough to ask, “What kind of trouble are we talking here, exactly?”
*
“Your place is kind of a mess.”
“Yeah…” Clint trails off, looking at the broken glass strewn across the floor where the television was just a couple of days ago, the arrows littering every available surface and the huge coffee stain on the couch.
“Maybe you should move into Avengers Tower.”
“Shouldn’t you be at college or something?” he snipes back, nearly tripping over a cord to get to the aforementioned sofa. Kate’s already perched on one of his bar stools, turning an arrow over in her hands. She pokes her tongue out at him.
“That’s more David’s thing. He knows, like, everything.” Clint doesn’t bother to ask who David is. “What kind of arrow is this anyway?”
“Acid arrow. Don’t play around with that,” he says. She puts it back on the counter carefully, but her face is delighted. “Now, tell me about this trouble.”
Kate deflates a little. “Right, yeah. The trouble. So America and I - the friend I’m staying with - were- no. Okay, so you know how there were all those aliens zooming around and your lot saved the world, blah blah blah?”
“I think I recall, yeah.” Clint snorts. Your lot.
“So, my friends and I were thinking afterwards, especially since you guys kind of slipped off the radar a bit, I mean there was that whole thing with that elf guy and the universes aligning and the Mandarin or whatever, but, my point is all these little things kept happening and my friends and I were like, well, doesn’t look like Earth’s mightiest heroes are going to drop by anytime soon, so…”
Jesus. Clint closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Go on.”
“Right so, Billy’s like a witch or something and then David knows everything, Tommy can run super fast, and America’s got the strength of an extremely keen bodybuilder and is an alien, kind of, so is Teddy, actually-”
“Hold on, slow down. What?” Clint interrupts, sitting up.
“Superpowers,” Kate says, waving a hand. “Just go with it. They crashed a wedding once.”
“Right.” Don’t ask, he thinks. “And the trouble?”
“Right, so we decided to take things into our own hands a bit. Stopped some robberies. Small-scale alien invasions, you know.”
“Small-scale alien invasions?” Clint says. “I didn’t hear about any small-scale alien invasions.”
“Duh. We stopped them,” Kate says, rolling her eyes. “This one thing took control of a bunch of parents - our parents - and tried to kill us. You know. Small-scale stuff.”
Clint really doesn’t have anything to say to that.
“So, anyway, we’re not being completely obvious about the whole superhero thing, but someone was going to notice eventually, and I guess we saved the day in front of the wrong people, because a few weeks ago we started getting job offers from this woman, she controls some kind of criminal hive-mind, I don’t even know, calls herself Madame Masque-”
“How come this woman knew who you were and S.H.I.E.L.D didn’t?”
Kate shrugs. “Guess S.H.I.E.L.D. had bigger fish to fry.” There’s a weird note to her voice but Clint decides now isn’t the time to press. He frowns, wondering how many other kids are wandering around with superpowers.
(He probably should have pressed. Somewhere in the harbor his phone flashes, Where the fuck are you?)
“Anyway,” she continues. “This woman, she wears a golden mask like something straight out of a comic strip, you know?”
No, Clint thinks. I don’t know.
“And at first it’s all nice, like, offers lots of money for our talents, you know. David, Billy and Tommy, especially.”
“The witch, the guy who runs super fast and the guy who knows everything,” Clint says.
“That’s right!” Kate beams. “So we said no, because we started doing this to do some good, you know? Not rob people and be lackeys to some super-villain-crime-lord.” A pause. “You got any coffee or is it all on your couch?”
Clint starts, shifting over slightly so he’s sitting on the stain. “Yeah. Top left cupboard. Stuff’s on the counter. Help yourself.”
Kate jumps off the stool and flicks the kettle on. “So she gets kind of mad, ‘cause apparently people don’t just say no to Madame Masque, and we’ve uh, dispatched a few of her minions that have been following us around, and I kind of tied her up and stole her clothes and impersonated her so the rest of her organization would stop already-”
“I think I’m going to need some of that coffee,” Clint says, which is about as useful as groaning at her bravado, but maybe slightly kinder.
“So, now she wants me dead,” Kate finishes, pouring water over the coffee grounds. “Or something. And I thought, ‘Who better to enlist in helping me than an Avenger!’” A slightly guilty look crosses her face. “Hey, Hawkeye?”
“Yeah?”
“You got any towels? I think your press is broken.”
*
“Hold still, Princess,” America says, crouching over the camera to look through the viewfinder. “Why am I doing this again? Don’t you have a smartphone?”
Kate drops the silly pose she’s adopted and looks at Clint, who is shaking his head on America’s couch, which is in significantly better shape. She rolls her eyes. “You know that Madame Masque woman who’s been following us around?”
America looks up and raises an eyebrow, shaking curly hair out of her eyes. “I think I remember, yeah.”
“Well, the esteemed Hawkeye here and I have an excellent plan to get her off our backs. And both of our phones are, um, off the grid.”
Everyone blinks when the flash goes off, white light flooding America’s flat for a fraction of a second.
(America doesn’t have a television either. Kate knocked this morning’s newspaper right off the coffee table with Clint’s equipment earlier but it’s still lying on the floor, forgotten in the wake of Kate inviting an Avenger around to America’s flat.
It’s all a bit exciting.)
“And are we up to plan A, B, or C?” America teases with a smile, unscrewing the camera from the tripod and holding it out to Kate. “This do?”
Kate grins. “Plan A, actually. And that’s great. Want to come to the library with us?”
“You promise not to get us dragged out by security this time?”
“That was just the once!” Kate protests, already shrugging on a jacket while America pulls on a pair of bright red boots. Clint doesn’t ask.
“So, if you’re an Avenger, how come you’re hanging out with Kate?” America asks, jerking a thumb in Kate’s direction.
“Excuse you,” Kate says, mock offended. “I’m excellent company.”
“Library?” Clint says, reaching up to awkwardly scratch at his neck.
*
“We shouldn’t be meeting right now, Hawkeye,” Billy says, looking anxiously out the window of the pancake parlor and into the crowded street. “We don’t know who’s watching us.”
“Pardon?” Clint says.
“He’s uh,” Kate looks down at her plate and pushes the syrup around. “Talking to me.”
“Is he.” If it’s possible to pointedly shovel pancakes into one’s mouth, that’s what he does.
“Okay, so maybe middle school wasn’t exactly the last time I picked up a quiver.”
“I’m beginning to think this was all just so you could get your hands on my gear, you know,” Clint says. He’s only half joking. Maybe not even half.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” Kate says, face one part guilt and two parts smirk, and turns back to Billy. “I just need you to use your skills, you know, to distribute these.” She pushes the stack of freshly photocopied pictures of herself across the table. Stick a hand in the middle of the pile and they’d still be warm.
Billy picks one of the flyers up. “Madame Masque! 8 PM, tonight! Your less-secret-than-you-thought warehouse,” he intones, voice extremely dry. A quirked eyebrow. “Be there or be square?”
Kate shrugs. “Nobody wants to be a square, Billy.” No one disagrees. “Anyway. It makes her look juvenile and draws too much attention. She won’t like it. I’ll have to be stopped.” There is definitely something a bit wrong with how gleeful she sounds, but Clint kind of appreciates it.
“How did you find her warehouse anyway?” Billy asks, face eager and intrigued.
“Just because my talent is for punching holes in stuff, doesn’t mean I can’t be subtle, Kaplan,” America says with a smirk.
Kate snorts. “Yeah. We only had to knock out like, four of her lackeys. Real subtle.”
“So you just, what, wish these away and they go?” Clint asks Billy, gesturing in the vague direction of the flyers.
“Pretty much.” He shrugs. “And she’s definitely going to see these before 8?”
“She doesn’t need to,” Kate says, looking smug. Probably about the plan. It’s a great plan. “She’s got connections. Now do your thing while the waitress isn’t looking.”
Billy sighs and raises glowing hands, the flyers following them. Clint swallows as they rustle in the air as if blown about by a strong wind, then vanish out the door so fast that the only evidence they were here is a small paper cut where one nicked his cheek on the way out.
“Anything else?”
America and Kate share a grin. “You up for kicking some Masqued butt?” Kate says.
*
“I don’t know if this was the best plan!” Kate yells across the warehouse, hands clutched tight around the arm trying to close in on her neck. “Actually I’m starting to think it kind of sucks!”
“Suck it up chica, we’re stuck with it now,” America replies from Clint’s right, midway through throwing a punch.
He has no idea who this Madame Masque is - there is probably a dossier at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ somewhere that he doesn’t have clearance to access - but Kate wasn’t joking when she said the woman controlled some kind of criminal hive-mind. The well-dressed goons are everywhere. He kicks at a man to his left and fires a smoke bomb arrow in Kate’s vague direction. “Watch out!” he yells.
“Thanks Hawkeye!” she calls back, running out of the smoke, grinning. “Toss me that bow, would you?”
She catches it and pulls back the string in one swift movement, a sort of pirouette, and the next thing he can hear is a man’s voice, well and truly pissed off, screaming through the smoke, “Jesus, was that acid?” Clint grins.
The kid with the magic powers is doing some complicated thing with his hands, then, and suddenly everyone in the room is knocked to the ground but Clint, Kate, Billy and America.
“So,” Kate says, looking around while they all breathe heavily and poke at fresh bruises. “Where the fuck is Madame Masque?”
“An excellent question, Kate.” Everyone jumps and looks up, a flash of gold and some kind of enormous gun poking over the railings of the walkway above their heads. “Got your note. Very cute.”
Madame Masque jumps down, and Clint is reluctantly impressed with her landing as small clouds of dust rise around her white boots. Then again, it’s hard to tell what is genuinely impressive when there is a grenade launcher pointed at your head, so.
“Billy?” Kate says out of the corner of her mouth, nodding at the grenade launcher.
“I’m on it.” A second later Madame Masque swears and almost drops the thing. Kate pulls the bow up and fires, the arrow skidding across the ground in front of her.
“Really, little Hawkeye?” Madame Masque rolls her eyes from behind the shining mask. “Pathetic,” she sneers.
“Time delay explosive arrow,” Clint says.
“Pardon?” she says before gasping as the tip explodes at her feet, sending her flying backwards, grenade launcher landing with a loud thud where she had been standing.
“Pretty much what it says on the tin,” Kate says. “Hawkeye?”
Clint steps back and makes a sweeping movement with one hand. “Please, Hawkeye.”
Kate grins, lifting her bow again. “With pleasure.”
*
“You never finished answering my question,” Clint says, icepack held to his head in one hand, Starbucks in the other.
“Which question?” Kate asks around a mouthful of muffin.
“Why me? I mean you know your way around a bow, so it makes sense, but I still wanna know.”
“Oh. Well. Who did we already strike off the list? The Hulk, Thor and Iron Man?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, obviously I can forget ever trying to track the Black Widow down; I’m pretty sure the whole world knows how that would go.” She laughs. Clint isn’t quite sure he follows, but lets her continue. “I’m sure Captain America would be much easier to stalk, but you know, both of them had that thing go down in D.C. the last couple of days, so I don’t think they’d have been much-”
Clint holds up a hand to interrupt. “Wait. Thing? D.C.?”
Kate raises an eyebrow. “You know. S.H.I.E.L.D.. Assassin guy with a metal arm. Nazi terrorist organization trying to kill a significant portion of the population,” she says, like she’s talking to a four-year-old. “Actually,” she says, looking confused, “Why weren’t you there? Don’t you work for them or something? You’re not secretly a HYDRA agent are you?”
Clint pales. “I need to find a payphone.”
“Jeez, Hawkeye, don’t you watch the news?”