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It starts innocently enough. Neither Kate nor Clint take kindly to being bored, injuries notwithstanding, and as long as they can stand on their own two feet and have halfway functional use of both arms, downtime will eventually turn into target practice. If you also factor in that they got up to an impromptu contest the first time they (somewhat officially) met, well. All things considered, it was downright inevitable. The only mystery might be how it took them this long to get started.
They’re sitting on his couch, in a tangle of limbs designed to still be comfortable while also avoiding pressure on any aching body parts, when Clint nudges Kate’s knee. “Hey,” he says. “This sucks. I’m bored.”
She glares at him, down her nose, hopes it’s appropriately scathing. “And how, exactly, is that my problem?”
“You did insist that we go out over the fire escape,” he points out, pouting in a way that should be impossible to pull off for a grown man in his thirties. “The old, dilapidated fire escape. Which then ended up collapsing on us halfway down.”
“Yeah.” Kate snorts. “ To avoid getting shot by running out front.”
Clint shakes his head, holding up a hand; it only serves to make him look more like a five-year-old. “That is not the point.”
“Fine, Hawkeye. Then what is your point?”
“Entertain me.” He grins, and Kate knows two things: one, he’s going to suggest something stupid, and two, she’s going to go along with it. “The old-fashioned way. Let’s have ourselves a contest.”
Kate sits up and throws her hair back, ignoring protests issued by the bruises all over her torso. “So, you want your ass kicked. Is that it?”
“Please.” He straightens up too, with similarly painful results, if the anguish that washes over his face is anything to go by. “In your dreams.”
They’re on bed rest. Neither of them should be pulling a bow string right now, or will be able to do so without considerable discomfort. But if the choice is boredom or a bit of pain, well, neither of them got to where they are by relying on reason and smart choices. Kate looks him straight in the eye and grins back.
“You’re on.”
***
They're on opposite rooftops, picking up stray Hydra agents as they try to get away while the supers rain hell on the whole affair. Clint can see her whenever he glances up, in the distance, a small, vaguely Kate-shaped splotch of purple, smudged by the rain. It's cold, and he's soaked to the bone; she must be too. They've been up and at it for hours, plus the time it took them to get flown in with the rest of the team. Their comms have been silent for a good ten minutes now. Radio silence, that much he knows, is among the surefire signs for Kate being tired and miserable.
“Hey, Hawkeye,” he says, doing his best to sound casual and just the right shade of teasing. “What do you say we make this a little more interesting?”
Her answer comes immediately; she's doing about as good a job of conveying she's not exhausted and inches away from the end of her rope as he is. “Sure thing, Hawkeye, what do you have in mind?”
“Every knocked out goon counts five points”, he suggests. “Ten if you get two or more with the same arrow. Winner gets to pick pizza topping when we get home?”
“Hmm.” She hums, as if she needs to think this over. Bets are serious business. “Throw in a massage, to be delivered at the time of the victor's choosing, and I'm in.”
He nods, realizes belatedly that she's too far away to see it. “Deal,” he says, and aims to line up his first ten-points-shot.
***
Like most things that happen when Hawkeye and Hawkeye are left to their own devices, it quickly spirals out of control.
See, they have a competitive streak a mile wide, both of them. It's pretty much in the job description. You don't become good enough to join the Avengers at something like archery by not wanting to be better at it than anyone else who ever breathed. And at this point they are pretty much the only ones capable of keeping up with one another.
“Ten points,” Kate announces as she finishes off two of those winged... whatever. They're gross, that much she knows, like a cross between bat and toad. Those arrows won't get picked up and reused later, no matter how much Clint might lecture her about respecting the gear and not wasting material. Ewww. Not enough disinfectant in the world to ever make her touch those again.
“Ah, c'mon.” There's a whir and a swoosh as Clint lets fly too. “They hardly have enough smarts between their eyes to avoid an arrow when they see it, keep screeching and hacking at them. That's not worth more than one point apiece.”
“But they're flying. Not slowly either. Totally worth the usual points.” It's not like Kate actually cares about how many points she's booking, but the arguing is fun. Plus, principles. She knows he's still sore from two nights ago – senior Avengers only, Kate was left to stay home and cuddle the dog – and leaves more shots to her than he usually would. If she lets him get away with cheepskating his way out of this one, he'll argue her ear off all the time. Clint loves arguing about the most trivial shit. He started this. He can damn well stick to his own rules.
She hears him sigh, but before he can reply, Jess cuts into the conversation. Kate likes Jess. Usually. But right now Jess is – rightfully – pissed at Clint, and that apparently means she's also pissed at Kate by proxy.
“Could you two please at least try to handle this like professionals and keep your banter off the comm?”
“Seconded,” comes Carol's voice; not too much of a surprise that she's joining in, what with being Jess' bestie. Or are they? With the memory loss, chances are even the two of them are sort of muddy about that at the moment. “Tally this back home if you absolutely have to, sheesh.”
Neither Clint nor Kate are reckless enough to thrash this out mid-battle, but that's how the idea for their board is born.
***
Naturally, things get put on hold when Kate runs off to California. Clint doesn't bother tallying while she's gone – and of course she's gone, he always does that, shoves away every good person that has the bad fortune to trip-fall into his clusterfuck of a life – because what's the point? It doesn't count if she's not right there with him, by his side, taking a shot of her own for every one of his. He does leave the board up, though. Because she'll come back. She just needs some time, and he needs to pull his head out of his own ass and get his crap together, and then they'll pick up where they left off.
Barney glances at the board on the third day of his stint at Clint's place, huffs and points at Kate's column. “That the girl who took your dog?”
“Yep, that's her,” Clint replies, and Barney frowns. He looks impressed, and that's not an easy thing to achieve. Of course, Kate would pull it off while being on the other side of the damn continent.
“Coulda been me and you,” Barney says. “She's that good?”
Clint nods absently. “Yeah,” he confirms, thinking about the night she set him straight for taking his bad mood out on her, not long before she left, and matched the Robin Hood shot that got him his bow back years ago. “She is that good.”
***
After Kate comes back, smack in the middle of an improvised battle that cost the lives of however many tracksuit mafiosos and Clint's fucking brother, for a little while, things are even worse than before. This time she can't blame him – it's not hardheadedness or simply a bad couple of weeks, it's grief. Kate knows what it means to lose family, and hers wasn't the last she had. She lets him rage and she lets him yell and she lets him go quiet and stare right through her, and she doesn't leave his side, both on and off the job.
One morning, when Kate's stopped bothering to count the days but still shows up every morning to coax him out of bed and make him eat anyway, Clint points at their board.
“He asked me, while you were gone, if you're really that good. To, you know. Keep up with me.”
“Whoa,” Kate says, mock-offended; she doesn't take it as a jab at her skill, because if there's one thing Clint's always been vocal about, it's setting everyone straight who dares to imply she's inferior. “Keep up with you? Give me the ten years of experience you've got on me, and I'd have left your sorry ass in the rear view mirror.”
“Don't worry, I defended your honor. You'd have been proud.” He actually smiles; it's been a while since she's seen him do that. She wasn't quite aware of how much she'd missed it. “When we were kids, back in the circus, we'd practice together sometimes and make it a contest. Put down our numbers in the sand. Loser'd have to take up the winner's chores.” He pauses, and she resists her usual urge to fill the silence, waits him out. “He wiped the floor with me at first, but not for long. I got better, and eventually he lost interest. Got grumpy about. Barney wasn't so fond of losing.”
“Now, I wonder if that's maybe a genetic trait,” she says, elbowing him playfully.
His smile widens into a grin, but one without vigor, not teasing or smug. It's warm and proud, though with a twinge of something sadder still. “It's a Hawkeye trait, really, isn't it?”
She grins back, nods exaggeratedly. “Damn right it is.”
***
The next time they're out on a mission together, they start up tallying again, yelling out points over the comm, and no one bothers to chide them for it. Kate is so relieved she kinda wants to cry.
She suspects she's not the only one.