Work Text:
Here's the thing: it happens on a Tuesday.
In his worst, most selfish moments, when it's all he can do to breathe in, breathe out, relax each finger knuckle by knuckle so he doesn't snap his bow clean in two, Clint thinks that maybe, maybe this is what he gets for thinking he can just walk away. Leave the whole Avengers business behind, with all the explosions and the conspiracies and the punching aliens in the face, stop being a Protector of Earth and just protect his block. He can never be a normal person, not really, but he can at least try to live like one, instead of sequestered away in the shining spire of Avengers Tower, looking down on all the citizens of New York. Clint has always had an affinity for high places, but he knows better than anyone that if you get too high, you lose sight of the target.
He needs the ground beneath his feet just as much as he needs his perches. He needs the stench of New York sidewalks in the summer filling his nostrils. He needs his shitty apartment building filled with people who can never quite get his codename right, and he needs the stupid tracksuit Russian mob trying to kill him every other weekend, and he needs his dog and he needs Kate goddamn Bishop waltzing into his apartment without knocking just because she's bored and wants to make fun of him.
And in those dark, suffocating moments, Clint thinks that this is what he gets for ever thinking he can have what he needs.
Because it happens on a Tuesday. The one day a week Clint never goes out looking for trouble, because Kate doesn't have any classes on Tuesdays and decided at the start of the semester that she'd rather waste the day harassing Clint than doing any homework. Clint hadn't even put up a token resistance when she had, because it gave him an excuse to put down the bow and just act normal for one day a week, and to keep something other than instant coffee and protein bars and dog food stocked in his house. He wishes he had, now, even if he knows it probably wouldn't have made a difference, because he can't shake the voice that whispers that maybe, just maybe if she hadn't been here she would have made it. If Kate hadn't been here, maybe this wouldn't have happened.
But it does happen, and it happens like this: it's a Tuesday, and Kate is lounging at his kitchen island with a mug dangling carelessly from the fingers of her left hand and Lucky's head in her lap. Clint is turned around doing something stupid with the TV -- he can't remember what, it doesn't matter, what matters is that he wasn't looking when it started.
Kate is by the kitchen and he's halfway across the room looking at the TV, and then there's a crash as Kate's mug shatters on the floor, and Lucky is barking, and Clint whirls to face her with a "Jesus, Bishop" that dies before it even gets halfway out of his throat.
Because now he's looking, and the world is slowing down.
Her left arm is entirely gone now, flaking away in the space of an instant. He watches the horror crawl across her face, the way what's left of her chest is stuttering with panicked breaths. Lucky is whining, lifting one paw to bat at the space where her right leg used to be. Clint can't breathe.
They lock eyes. Kate's are so, so wide.
He stumbles across the room, one hand reaching out desperately for her. He thinks she tries to do the same, but her arms have melted away, and when she tries to stand she crashes to the floor immediately.
"Katie--"
"Clint, what--"
And then she's gone.
He doesn't know how he ends up outside. He tries harder than he should to remember, because it's one of those details that doesn't matter at all to anyone else, but Clint's always had a fascination with falling, always been just this side of the ledge, and this is the day he finally went over it -- for real this time, because this time he's sure there's nothing at the bottom to catch him, and he wants to remember everything he can.
But what he comes up with is this:
He's on the floor where Kate used to be.
The dust is still falling.
Lucky is barking.
He breathes in.
Closes his eyes.
Breathes out.
Eyes open.
He's on the street.
People are screaming. A mother gets half a sob out as her child disintegrates in her arms before she's gone too. Cars are careening out of the street, crashing through shop windows and into fire hydrants.
For all intents and purposes, the world is ending.
'Okay ,' Clint thinks, because it's all he can do. 'Okay, this looks bad.'
Half the population gone, is what they're saying on the news. Not just people. Animals, too. If Clint had to guess, he'd wager it's not just Earth. It's the entire universe. Half of all life, decimated in an instant. In a snap.
Heroes tried, they're saying. Half of them are gone too, dead in the battle or vanished after. They tried, and it didn't work. Thanos got away. He won. But the Avengers tried.
'Not me ,' Clint thinks. 'I didn't try. I just stood in my apartment and I watched Kate die.'
Part of him thinks that should be better -- he only couldn't save one person, instead of half the known universe. The rest of him knows there's absolutely no difference.
Fury's gone. He sees that on the news. He only knows Nat's still around because she's been blowing up his phone for hours. The texts and calls keep coming and he doesn't answer, just leaves his phone on the coffee table and stares at it until the battery runs out and it goes dark. Quiet, too, but everything is quiet now -- he took out his hearing aids when he finally stumbled back into his apartment and landed horizontal on the couch after going door to door in his building, taking stock of who was gone. He couldn't take the screaming anymore. Eventually he turned off the captions on the TV too, and hit mute just for good measure. There's nothing new for them to report, just new footage rolling in from across the world that Clint watches in silence.
He lies there, taking in other places' destruction and other people's desperation, because it's easier than getting up to clean up the broken ceramic and spilled coffee that mark that last place Kate Bishop ever stood.
A wet nose touches his arm. Clint jumps.
Lucky is standing by the couch, his big brown eyes fixed on Clint's face, his giant plume of a tail swaying low and gentle. It's not wagging -- he's not happy, because Lucky has always been the smartest dog Clint ever knew, and he knows Lucky knows something is wrong -- but it's a greeting. 'Hi ,' it says. 'I'm here. I'm still here and I still love you. '
Clint's heart breaks. He had forgotten all about Lucky in his panic and grief. Just another person who needed him and he had let down. His eyes sting and he doesn't even try to stop the tears.
"Hey buddy," he croaks out. His throat feels scratchy and painful with the words. "You hungry? You need to go out?"
Lucky puts a paw on the couch. Clint's brow furrows. "You...want to come up?"
He doesn't hear it, but Lucky puts his giant head on Clint's arm so he can feel the vibrations of the gentle boof he makes in confirmation. Clint lets out a watery laugh that's really more of a sob. He's the one who's lucky. He has the best goddamn dog in the universe, and by some miracle, Thanos hadn't taken that from him too.
Clint's couch is shitty and worn out and narrow, but he scoots back as far as he can, and Lucky clambers up, settling down half next to him and half on top of him. He licks Clint's face a few times, then rests his head on the pillow next to Clint's. Clint winds his arms around Lucky, buries his face in his soft fur, and lets himself sob until there's nothing left.
When he's done, Lucky nudges him until he can lick the tear tracks from Clint's face, and Clint's heart seizes with the vastness of the love he has for this dog.
"When the world stops being on fire," he tells him, "I'm going to buy you all the pizza you want."
Lucky boofs in agreement.
He could just leave his phone dead.
Part of him wants to. He'd never sent Nat to voicemail himself, just let her calls timeout. There's no way for her or anyone else to know he's still alive. He could leave his phone dead and grab his bow and his arrows and his dog and just leave. Let whatever's left of the Avengers sort this mess out themselves. Let them get themselves killed trying. Part of Clint thinks he's lost enough. He could just take everything he has left and run, and he can almost convince himself they wouldn't fault him for it.
But he couldn't take everything he has left, not really. He has half an apartment building of people left he'd promised to protect, and they've lost enough -- Clint's not going to try to make them leave their homes, and as terrible as he knows he is, he also knows he's not quite terrible enough that he's going to leave them.
It's that knowledge that keeps him from giving into the other part of him too, the part that wants to say fuck it, fuck everyone who survived when Kate didn't, and burn whatever's left of New York and the world to the ground before throwing himself on the flames too. He doesn't, because people still live here, people Clint's made promises to. And he's never been very good at keeping promises, but he figures, fuck it, half the world is dead and somehow he's not, it's not too late to start trying.
But he could still leave his phone off. And he does, for almost two weeks. He has enough to worry about here, trying to keep everyone fed and safe in the chaos that erupts in New York in the days following the battle with Thanos. If the Avengers really want him, they can come get him. He tells himself it's not running away if he's not going anywhere.
'Yeah right, Barton. Like you believe that.'
And that's the last part of him speaking, the part he ignores with everything he has because it sounds too much like Kate and he just can't deal with that right now. So he shuts it down and throws himself into his work and leaves his phone dead on the coffee table and pretends he's doing everything he can.
But New York has always been good at setting itself right after a disaster knocks it sideways, and it doesn't need him for long. The riots settle down. It becomes safe to go outside again. Life goes on.
On the thirteenth day after his world ends, Clint finds himself standing in his living room, staring at the coffee table. His phone is exactly as dark and silent as he left it.
He could just walk away. He could just leave his phone dead. They hadn't come looking for him yet.
He tears his eyes away, turns around, stops. He could just walk away. It would be so easy.
Clint's hearing aids are in, but there's nothing else to hear except Kate's voice in his head. It's not his subconscious torturing him this time. It's just a memory, which is worse, because that means it's just as true as it was last time.
'This thing you're about to do?' Kate is saying. 'This running away thing? It's everything about you that sucks.'
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. 'Goddammit Katie.'
He walks away. And then he walks back with his phone charger grasped tightly in his hand. Lucky perks up where he's resting on the couch, his head cocked to the side in interest, watching as Clint plugs his phone in and it buzzes to life in his hand.
Clint locks eyes with him. It's another promise he doesn't know if he'll be able to keep, but he'll try, so he tells him, "We're getting her back, buddy."
For the first time in almost two weeks, Lucky's tail starts to wag.