Chapter Text
Friday 1st June - 06:11pm
Today sucked.
A missed alarm began the morning due to a broken phone charger. After unceremoniously dragging herself out of bed, the teenager broke her hairbrush, burnt her toast, almost lost her keys and still missed first period, getting to school halfway through second period. It didn't help when everyone turned to stare at her as she walked into the classroom in the same way you would should she have walked in covered in blood.
Lunch rolled around and she realised she forgot to grab stuff to eat, leaving her irritated and hungry. She spilt paint on her shirt in Art class, was rugby tackled into the wall in P.E, and then nearly got jumped outside of the gates while leaving her latest detention.
So yeah, today sucked.
And now it was pissing with rain. As if the universe hadn't already ruined any microbe of happiness remaining in her life today.
She walked quickly down the sidewalk, hands fisted at her sides as she tried to grit her teeth and bear it. She should count to ten. Practise her deep breathing. Clear her head of the stress and anger that plagued her like every other day she had to endure her school life.
...yeah that wasn't gonna work today. Fuck the deep breathing and the counting. She needed to hit something.
It didn't matter what it was, where it was, or how much it would cost to repair or replace, she needed to hit something. Otherwise, she was gonna hit someone, and she could not be bothered with adding yet another cherry on the shitcake that was this day.
The rain continued to pour down and she sighed, coming to a stop on the slippery pavement and looking around. She'd wandered further than her thoughts, apparently, as she found herself on the more rural side of town, the complete opposite of her own, on a thin road that circled back behind the farmhouses that could be seen distantly from her school. She'd never been to this side of town before, never needed to explore this way when her home, school, and anyone left to care about lived on the opposite end of Ashforn. A pinch of curiosity broke through her irritation.
All the houses on this specific road were pretty spaced out, and the closest one to her was the only one with no lights on at this time in the evening, and had no sign of life in the front or back garden. But from the angle she had, she could see a wooden porch door leading from the garden into the side of the house not facing the road. It was strange enough to notice and to grow that pinch of curiosity into something worth listening to.
She wandered towards the house, the street completely devoid of other life and only the distant sounds of cars on the main road were heard.
The driveway beside the building housed no car, or truck, or vehicle of any kind. The building itself had the backside facing the street and the front facing the fields, the driveway and a garage building beside it. There was a large barn connected to the actual house, the house considerably more modern and almost out of place for a porch door that seemed so dated. The closer she got, the more details of a small metal lock and hinges became clear. It was not very structurally sound. And the garden was only blocked off from the surrounding fields by the type of fence you would expect to see leading to a horse field.
There were no farm animals in the fields, only a few crickets in the long grass, but she did notice the random torn toys and tennis balls scattered in the garden.
The porch door looked bland compared to everything else, a stylistic choice maybe? She looked at it as her curiosity fizzled back out and left her earlier irritation in its place, and an idea she would have normally dismissed on any other day lingering in her mind.
It looked kickable. Very kickable.
A moment of debate, and she climbed over the fence gate, landing on the stone path and walking up to the door.
She pulled her hood tighter around her head as the rain continued to thud down. A quick glance around revealed no security cameras catching her doing this, not that she expected to see any with this part of town being so old, and so turned her attention back to the door.
Was this really a good idea? She was feeling a little calmer since walking up here.
She took a step back and thought about everything that had happened that day, everything that went wrong for no good reason, and felt her former irritation return to her with two clenched fists to match. Yeah, it was a good idea.
She took in a deep breath, suddenly anxious again.
Was she really going to break down a door to someone's house who could quite possibly be in and just not own a car? Someone who possibly owned a very big dog that would quickly be coming to bite her leg off--
She kicked the door as hard as she could before the thoughts could stop her, and she did not expect the door to completely come off its hinges first try.
She stumbled forward, landing on her side in a patio room. She stared down in disbelief at the easy-broken door beneath her. How old was this thing? She looked ahead to see another door up a step, much more modern and with a better locking mechanism, though he didn't dwell on the idea as the pain began to register.
Fuck. Her leg ached.
She rolled over onto her back, groaning at the sharp jolt from kneecap to pelvis. Not the best idea she'd ever had, but oh well.
Speaking of which, time to run... or awkwardly hobble back home before the owner or the owner's dog came along, and judging by the fact there was no doggy door in the one ahead of her or the one she was currently lying on, it must have been a big one.
She pulled herself up, gritting her teeth as she stumbled her way back over the gate and to the main road, holding the sides of her soaked hoodie down as she awkwardly limped towards home.
She arrived in twenty minutes, weaving through the carpark, typing the passcode into the apartment hallway door and heading inside, physically groaning out to the echoing hall when she remembered her home was on the second fucking floor. Using the bannister that was close to falling off, she slowly made her way up, unlocking the door and heading inside, kicking off her sneakers and tossing her soaked hoodie to the side to hopefully dry. She stripped off her jeans, showered quickly, and retired to bed, lying down with a short pained hiss.
It was her own fault but hey, it was better than kicking someone's face in. And the vandalism had been oddly cathartic, she found when thinking back on it.
She could see this method of stress relief becoming repeatable. Screw the counting and the deep breathing, this was much more effective. But maybe not for the next week or so, or at least not until she shoes that supported her more than worn canvas sneakers.
07:30pm - Same night
Lucky barked happily as home came into sight again.
Clint sighed in agreement, happy that they were nearly home so he could take a hot shower and go to bed.
It felt like Fury had been putting him on assignments left, right, and centre, after he had asked for the summer off, and the latest ones were killing him. His back ached and his head hurt, his upper arm was bandaged after a particularly close call with an overzealous sniper, but the idea of coming back home to spend more than a week with Lucky was a good reward and made the harder missions worth it. Even if he could hear Natasha in the back of his head calling him old when his back cramped up again.
As they got to the driveway, Clint opened the gate and let the retriever off his collar, closing the gate behind himself. He knew Pizza Dog had missed him since he'd last been back, and not just because he'd been carrying a big doggy bone as an apology. It had been too long since he took a real vacation, and he was just as excited as Lucky was once he thought about how he would be spending his free time enjoying that vacation.
He broke from his daydreams at Lucky's frantic barking, furrowing his brow and looking towards the house. That's when he pulled his gun.
The barn porch door was completely kicked in, splintered and all. No one else bar three others knew this place existed, so the gun in hand felt justified.
"Lucky. Come here, boy." Clint called him over carefully and he ceased barking, looking to him, back to the doorway, then slowly trekked back down the stone path to his master's side, staring up at me with his good eye. "Stay here, you got that?" the archer told him and moved forward before he could answer his regular yap.
Clint moved to the door, holding his gun up as he searched the porch room. Nothing had been moved, but the rainboots had been knocked a little by the door falling on top of them.
The door to the house didn't seem touched, still locked, but he unlocked it and headed inside, proceeding to search the whole house with extreme caution and growing more and more confused by the second. Nothing seemed to have been taken or misplaced. It seemed like they hadn't even been in the rest of the house altogether. So why the hell did they kick in the front door?
Clint lowered the gun, finding himself back in the front room and whistling loudly. Lucky's claws scraped on the hardwood floor as he came rushing through and into the front room, head moving as if he was looking around himself. Clint decided to chalk this up to a failed break-in, doing a final sweep of the house with Lucky following, before finally stepping into the bathroom for that shower he'd wanted and heading to bed, still a little uneasy, but ultimately just confused by the whole ordeal.