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No one answers for a long time when she knocks on the door.
Aimee, on her way out to do some deliveries, had let her into the building with a tight smile and no eye contact. Kate had frowned, but shrugged it off; she had more important things to worry about than one of Clint’s tenants giving her the silent treatment.
But no one answers Clint's door for a long time. Panic is just starting to creep into her chest when she hears muffled talking behind the door. It doesn’t sound exactly like Clint - almost, the same hint of an accent, but not quite - but the man is saying the same words Clint usually does, cursing about something or other. Kate grips her bow tight in one hand and Lucky’s leash in the other, knuckles shaking and white, and she stares at nothing for a second when the door finally opens. Then her gaze drop down to the face of a red-haired man in a wheelchair, who is propping the door open with one wheel and staring at her so blankly that she almost backs away.
"I, uh–"
"Kate," the man says.
"Yes."
"Kate," the man repeats, more to himself than to her.
"...Yes?" She shifts her weight from foot to foot, afraid to push past him but unwilling to stay out now that she's so close. Lucky looks up at at her, then strains against his leash. Kate holds him tighter, unwilling to let him get very far away. She feels like a child again, clinging to a pet for comfort, but something akin to disdain is flitting across the man’s face and she cannot bring herself to give it up.
"Is… Is Clint here?" Kate asks.
"Yeah," the man says. "He’s here."
"Can I see him?"
The man looks her up and down a few times, then silently wheels his wheelchair backwards to let her in. Lucky pulls on the leash again, leading her through the door, and she hears the door close softly behind her.
No going back now.
The apartment is a fair disaster. Not that it isn’t usually, but this is a whole new level. Clothes are on the floor next to empty bottles; the dishes haven’t been done in probably longer than Kate wants to think about; there are a couple of trash bags behind the counter, tied off neatly, that should have been taken out weeks ago. Lucky sniffs around her feet, whining quietly. Kate reaches down absently, scratching behind his ears, and feels sick.
She starts to turn to ask the man where Clint is, but there’s the quiet sound of bare feet against wooden floors and then Clint emerges from around the corner, toweling his hair dry in a pair of sweatpants and a worn t-shirt. He looks up and then does a double take when he sees her, standing in the middle of the room with a bow and a duffel bag and a dog yanking her arm off. She sees rather than hears his lips form the word ‘Kate’ and he drops his towel and she drops everything and runs at him, wrapping her arms around him, feeling tears prick in her eyes.
"God, Clint, I missed you, Christ, I thought you were dead, I thought they’d gotten to you…" She’s shaking in his arms, knuckles white as she grips his shirt. She isn’t strong enough to keep a few tears from falling, dampening his shoulder. She doesn't think he minds.
His hands are on her back, rubbing slowly, soothingly. “God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left, not with everything happening. You were right, Clint, you were right, and I hate it when you’re right but you were. I wasn’t grown up enough to make it in LA and I feel like everything I know is falling apart. My family’s a lie and my other family’s three thousand miles away and America’s not returning my calls and I thought you were dead, Clint, I–” She cuts herself off and just buries her face in his shoulder, like she’s afraid he’ll disappear.
She feels a hand tap her shoulder and unwinds herself to look at Clint, and then turns around to see the man in the wheelchair behind her. “He can’t hear you.”
Kate blinks. “What?”
"He can’t hear you."
"What do you mean he can’t hear me?"
"He’s deaf."
Kate stares, then laughs, but her chest feels cold as ice. “What are you talking about? Clint’s not deaf. He hears just fine. He’s not…”
The man looks at her dejectedly. “Lots happened since you left, girl.”
Kate just stares at him for a minute, then turns back to Clint. He’s looking at her sadly, eyes flickering between her mouth and her eyes. She swallows hard and whispers, “Clint?”
"Hey, Katie." He smiles a little, sadly. Kate feels her whole chest drop.
"Is he… Did he…" She motions back at the man in the wheelchair. "Is he right?"
Clint cocks his head, then looks over her shoulder at the man. Kate follows his gaze and sees the man making strange motions with his hands. Clint sighs and nods and makes some motions back, and then he reaches forward and hugs her again. A sob hitches in her chest and then she pushes him away, stares at his shoulder because she can't look him in the eyes, and says, “Is it true?”
Clint frowns and glances down at her lips.
"Is it true?" she demands, louder, like that will help.
Clint sighs and nods again.
He doesn’t flinch when Kate throws her head back and screams at the ceiling.
She’s out of breath, panting, trying not to cry and failing, and Lucky is jumping at Clint, trying lick his face. Clint beams and drops down onto one knee, rubbing his head and ruffling his ears and laughing when Lucky licks his cheeks. Kate averts her eyes, fists clenched, like she can’t bear to look at them together.
"What happened," she asks flatly.
The man in the wheelchair rolls up next to her. “Those tracksuited assholes are true to their word, girl. Snuck in through the roof, they probably got someone in here, just waiting. Me an' Simone an' her kids were in Clint’s apartment with that Jess girl, and then we realized… Clint went ahead of us, down to the basement, and they found some of his arrows and…” The man makes an aborted jamming motion.
Kate’s stomach lurches. “They?”
"Blond man, trench coat. Some kinda clown makeup," the man says. "Had a gun, but we got there before he had time to use it." A pause. "On Clint, anyway."
"You…?"
The man lifts up the hem of his shirt, revealing a crosshatched mess of bandages. “Yeah.”
"God…" She sways in front of him. "And then?"
"No idea," the man shrugs. "Clint's girl ran after us, she was probably the one to get us to the hospital. Woke up after surgery, no idea what happened in between."
"And… him?"
"He didn’t take it well," the man says. "Ain’t like it’s the first time, but it took a while for him to come ‘round again."
"Not the first…" Kate repeats, them shakes her head. "No. He can’t…" She turns back to Clint, who’s sitting on the floor, watching her, Lucky halfway on his lap. "You can’t. You can’t be– no. No. It’s not fair."
Clint reaches out and tries to take her hand.
"It’s not fair!" Kate yells. She wants to– to run away, to stamp her foot and cry and drive back to LA to Marcus and Finch, but she can’t. Running away is what got them all into this mess, and damned if she’ll ever let it happen again. "It’s not."
She’s dimly aware that she’s crying again, but she’s too angry to care. Angry at herself, at the Tracksuit Draculas, at Clint for making her leave, at herself because she ran away and everything fell to pieces, at this man in a wheelchair who says everything with such calm acceptance, like this isn’t her mentor and her teacher and her partner sitting on the floor with a dog in his lap in a world of bloody, brutalized silence.
Clint makes a hand movement and the man makes a hand movement back behind her. “He can read your lips,” the man says. “He’s okay. Signing is better, less room for messing up, but if you want to say something, you can say it, just slow.”
Kate nods, her eyes never leaving Clint’s. Slowly, carefully, she kneels down in front of him, reaches out and pulls back and reaches out again, touching his cheek like she’s still not sure he’s real. His eyes are soft as he watches her - there is no anger in them– or, at least, no anger for her. He doesn’t blame her, she realizes, and somehow that makes things even harder.
"Clint."
"Kate." His voice is off somehow, wrong in a thin sort of way, but she can’t describe exactly how.
Her other hand is on his thigh, steadying herself because she feels like she’s about to fall over. His hand covers hers and he squeezes gently. She sniffs and squeezes back and then takes his face in both her hands.
"I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ran away."
"It’s okay," he says out loud.
"I’m sorry I took your dog and ran away to the West Coast and I wasn’t there when– when everything. I shouldn’t have. Run, I mean. I didn’t know how hard it was, being out there on your own. I didn’t know…" She falls silent and bows her head and bites her lip hard.
Clint isn’t looking at her anymore, instead looking just over her shoulder. After a moment he nods and reaches up and turns her face back toward him, and says, “Kate. It’s okay.”
"It’s not." She hates how wrecked her voice sounds. "It’s not."
"It is." He lets go of her chin and reaches around to settle his hand on her neck and pulls her forward until their foreheads are pressed together. "It’s okay. We’ll fix it."
"How can you fix this?" She asks quietly, and he doesn’t respond because she doesn’t let him see. The words aren’t meant for him.
"We’ll fix it," he repeats. "We’ll take them out. All of them. We can be safe again."
"I’m sorry, Clint," she says again.
A hand presses in between her shoulder blades. The man on the wheelchair is behind her, rubbing her back. “He knows,” he says. “He forgives you.”