Work Text:
Firsts are supposed to be big moments. Clint barely even remembers his.
First kiss was some girl at the carnival. Then he might have thought it would be true love, but months later, he was far more involved in holding onto his brother than a girl whose name he no longer remembers.
First sex was worse. A haze of alcohol and drinking because he legally could. There was a stranger and awkward embarrassment in the bed, and honestly, Clint tried to forget that one.
First kill was survival and saving his boss who didn't deserve saving from another petty crook interested in their pot. It got lost somewhere in all the other people trying to kill Clint and the other arrows he shot into... how many?
The first kill didn't even rate compared to ten times into playing lookout and getting used to blood when he brought down some other crook's lookout and his gut clenched, realizing it was Barney.
Barney Barton. His brother.
And that wasn't even a first either. First time he saw his family maybe, almost, (almost certainly) die had been his parents in a car crash that left him numb and more frightened for his own survival than grief-stricken for the family he'd lost.
The firsts don't trip him up, don't send him reeling into a range where he can knock down his ghosts by nailing them into a target with an arrow.
His firsts don't matter like that unnumbered time in Budapest that Natasha took a bullet for him and nearly died on him when others had died for him and it didn't even matter. His firsts don't matter like Barney going down with an arrow ten times in, but he'd never counted the bodies.
First marriage ends in divorce. First SHIELD partner lasted three weeks. First, first, first.
"You're the first person I ever trusted," Natasha tells him.
He laughs and catches her hand. He won't be the first to break her heart. (He hopes he never does.)