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Kate knows that Clint knows that she's into him; it's not like she's tried to keep it a secret or anything.
And he knows that she knows that nothing's going to come of it. After The Phone Call, she's more or less resigned to that. Clint trusts her and he needs her and that's plenty, but it also doesn't stop him from having amazing arms and calling her nicknames that make her want to simultaneously kiss and kill him or forgetting that she's there and walking out of the bathroom without a shirt on. So she doesn't stop looking, because it's not like it's hurting anything save exacerbating the cramp in her wrist, but sometimes she wonders if she makes him uncomfortable.
"Do I make you uncomfortable?" she asks his ankles while she works on untying the knots around them.
"Do I look uncomfortable to you?" Clint says faintly.
She leans over the edge of the roof to take a peek, can see his legs, long and pulled taut, and his fingers scrabbling at the face of the building, trying to stop himself from swaying in the wind. "Yeah, actually."
"Not on your account, girlie, I swear."
"And not just 'cause your life's in my hands, right?" She tugs at the rope again and curses before she finds a knife on the walking tracksuit she'd knocked out on the way up.
"Anytime today," Clint calls, just this side of frantic.
"Pushy, aren't we, for somebody about to plunge into traffic." The rope finally snaps; she drops the knife and catches him around the ankles.
"Would now be a good time to tell you I'm very comfortable with you? And also with your ability to save me from certain death?"
"Well, it couldn't hurt," she grunts, pulls him the last little bit over the edge so he can roll onto the roof.
"You're amazing, Hawkeye," he mumbles against the concrete.
"That sounds familiar," Kate says, nudging him in the ribs with her toe. "You good to walk?"
"Maybe," he says. "I'm kinda loving solid ground right now."
"One day you can marry it," she promises, offering her hand.
Clint stumbles when he gets to his feet, so she wraps an arm around his waist to steady him, pulls one of his over her shoulders and quietly appreciates the weight of him, the solid feel of muscle around her. "I mean it, you know," he says conversationally, even though his head is swaying in a way that makes her think his blood isn't circulating the way it should be. "You don't have to worry about that. I don't want to you worry about me. About anything."
"Then maybe you should get kidnapped less," she tells him, all sincerity.
"Was that a grope, Hawkeye?"
"You should be so lucky. Do you know what you smell like right now?"
"Fear and gratitude?"
"More like cheap cologne and urine."
"Neither of which are mine!"
"God, like that makes it better?"
A gunshot goes off downstairs, followed by several pairs of angry, noisy feet. "I guess that's my cue to snap out of it," Clint says.
Kate hands him his bow, and they get to work.
-
When they get home—and that's so telling, isn't it, Kate thinks, and also sad and terribly complacent and true, that his apartment is home—the first thing she does is close her eyes and fall on the couch, let her feet kick around blindly until they find the edge of the coffee table to rest on. Clint walks toward the bedroom, grumbling incoherently, and after a few minutes she hears the creak of the pipes that means he's in the shower.
She is not going to think about having sex with him in the shower.
She is not—
But maybe it's okay to just think of him in the shower: weary, head braced against the tile, shoulders slumped forward like he's already asleep. Maybe he's not even making the effort to wash himself yet, just letting the spray hit him. Water trailing up and down all the scars that Kate's seen but doesn't know, dripping from his eyelashes, from his lips. Thinking about today, about almost dying—he does that a lot. Maybe thinking of her, or the countless other people who've saved his life before she even entered the picture. The people he's loved.
She dozes off at some point, because Clint spooks her when he comes to lay next to her, head resting ever so slightly on her thigh. Her hand goes to his hair entirely of its own accord and it's still damp underneath her fingers; she sucks in a breath. "Your hair's still wet," she informs him.
"Your hair's wet," he mumbles. She cracks one eye open to get a look at him: eyes shut, knees hooked over the arm of the couch, leaning his head into her palm when she scratches at his scalp.
"That's not how those jokes work, Clint."
"I'm pretty sure those jokes don't work at all, Kate."
She sighs. "Next time. Next time let's make a friend instead of pissing off a Russian crime boss. Just to break the monotony."
"But then what'll we do for fun?"
Kate thinks for a long minute. "Checkers," she deadpans. It's not any funnier than it has a right to be, but they still laugh about it until their ribs ache, and then more.
After it fades into slow, easy silence: "I have checkers, Katie."
"No, you don't. Go to sleep, Hawkeye."
"You too, Hawkeye."
-
(The first time she'd stayed over it had been kind of a Thing.
Mostly she'd just said, "I'm staying here tonight," and poured herself a cup of coffee, while Clint choked on his and spilled it over the countertop.
"On the couch, dummy." He opened his mouth to speak. "And if you try and offer me the bed I will be forced to punch you in the dick, because we are not that particular cliché."
He hadn't, so she didn't, and when they went to sleep that night it was normal. But Kate woke up a couple times to the click of the bedroom door, and when the sunlight through the blinds forced her eyes open there were more blankets on her than she'd remembered.)
-
She's sitting on the couch reading when he comes back from Stark Tower, looking very much like he'd like to punch something and also like he's been punched. Kate wonders if Captain America was being a douche. Then she starts thinking about the probable causes for Cap's douchiness, not least of which is the fact that Clint's got a teenage girl parked on his sofa most nights a week—she doesn't need to go down that particular guilt spiral right now, so she dog-ears her page and sets her book in her lap.
Clint doesn't acknowledge her verbally, not so much as a, "hey, you weren't here when I left!" but he does sit down next to her, pulls her legs over his lap. She had been about to ask him if he wanted to talk, but he starts rubbing her ankles and she closes her eyes and loses herself in it for a moment; the warmth of his hands, the size of them, the calluses so familiar but more defined, older and coarser. Cassie used to sit with her like this, she remembers, the realization pricking her stomach. She beats it back with a smile, refuses to blame Clint for who he's not anymore than she can for who he is.
"Whatcha watching, Katie-Kate?" he says finally, gestures toward the muted television.
Kate glances up. "'I think we're just going to have to be secretly in love with each other and leave it at that.'"
Clint's hands go still on her calves, eyes bugging out of his head. It takes everything in her not to laugh in his face. She turns the volume up instead.
"That's, uh. From the movie, isn't it."
She leans up to pat him on the cheek. "You're not as dumb as they say you are, boss."
"Wait, who says I'm dumb? Was it Iron Man? Katie!"
She ignores him and goes to make the coffee.
Three nights later she's in the kitchen, gnawing on her third piece of pizza (Clint's late, so his half is forfeit—fair's fair), when somebody taps on the living room window. She swallows and tosses her crust to Lucky, grabs her bow, just in case.
Spider-man is hanging outside the building, a woozy-looking Clint tucked under his arm. "Oh, hey," he says when she opens the window. "Are you lady-Hawkeye? I brought you a present."
"You could have gift-wrapped it," she says, and it comes out a little less playful than she means it to when Clint starts to stumble across the floor. "How bad?" she asks, grabbing a hold of his arm.
"I know certain billionaire philanthropists who would be proud."
"Hey, Kate," Clint says sleepily. "'s Spidey."
"I can see that. C'mon, let's get you in bed before your liver falls out on the carpet."
He manages to kick his own shoes off when they get in the bedroom, and Kate's not willing to risk the awkwardness of undressing him any further; one night of sleeping in jeans won't hurt him. He falls back on the bed spread-eagled and grabs Kate's wrist when she turns to go.
"Am I a bad guy, Katie?"
"What?" she gently tugs her arm free, covers his hand with hers. "Who told you that, Clint?"
"Nobody. People. Am I?"
"You're great. You're really okay, Clint."
He smiles at her, and it sends warmth shooting through her bones. "Well, if you say so."
"I do say so." She ruffles his hair and pulls away before she's tempted to kiss that stupid, stupid smile off his face. "Get some rest, Hawkeye."
Spider-man is still hanging upside down in the window when she leaves. "Thanks," she says, clearing her throat. "For, you know. Bringing him."
"Anytime—Hawkette? Hawkgirl?"
"It's just Hawkeye."
"Right. He talks about you a lot, you know. I just kinda figured you'd be older."
"The feeling's mutual, tiny," she shoots back, eyes narrowing.
"Hey, I'm legal!"
"What, in dog years?"
Spider-man laughs so hard he sends himself swinging. "I was right. You and me are gonna be good friends."
Kate tries to stop the blush—but Spider-man wants to be her friend. It's a little bit of a fist-pump moment. "Thanks, I think," she says instead, offers him a little grin.
"So how long have you been hung up on him?"
"Okay, we're not friends yet."
"I was just going to offer a little friendly advice!"
"And that is…?"
"To just sneak up on him and pounce. Here, you can practice on me." He rolls his mask up to his nose, and Kate would sock him in the jaw but the shit-eating grin on his face feels too much like Tommy to get anything but an eyeroll out of her.
"Good night, Spider-man," she says, pushes against his chest and shuts the window quickly. She smiles at the noise he makes when he collides with the glass.
-
She goes home that night—to her actual house.
When she comes back in the morning, Clint is already showered and dressed and has a cup of coffee for her, and he looks at her strangely but they don't talk about it.
-
Until she's once again saving him from his untimely demise, this time hoisted over a pit of acid.
"Points for creativity, zero," she gripes, as she helps him slip the knot around his wrist. "Seriously, you're not pretty enough for this to keep happening."
"That cuts deep, Hawkeye," he frowns at her, rubbing at the rope indentations. "I have it on good authority that I am very pretty."
"I've seen worse, I guess," Kate says flippantly, runs a hand along her quiver.
"You take that back right now," he says, grabs her around the middle and tickles her, unrelenting. She yelps and swats at him, mostly laughing because he knows every single one of her weak spots. But she's bubbling from the inside out anyway, from the warmth of his skin seeping through her shirt, from the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he laughs at her.
"Um," she says breathless, once the laughter's faded. He has her in a hold that feels like a mockery of a dance, in an awkward dip with her palms flat against his shoulders. "You're pretty, you're pretty. Lemme go."
"All you had to say," Clint says, but the mirth is gone, his smile sinking into seriously uncomfortable territory.
"Spider-man thinks you're pretty," she blurts as she rights herself, tugging her ponytail back into place.
"Kate, you don't know Spider-man."
"Do so. We're best friends now. I know all the gossip."
"Katie—"
"We're having a sleepover tonight, actually. I figure we'll braid each other's hair, talk about all the cute superheroes."
Clint lays a hand on her shoulder. "Spider-man thinks I'm pretty, huh."
"And Iron Man doesn't think you're stupid," she says, looks up at him with her lip between her teeth. "Clint—"
"I wouldn't go that far—"
"Look, I don't know what else is going on with you—which sucks, FYI—but I didn't mean anything by it, and I definitely don't want you to feel so, I don't know, guilty for hanging out with me that you have to go and—"
"No, no way, Katie." His hand leaves her shoulder, cups her cheek instead. "Nothing is wrong and whatever you think it is, it's definitely not your fault. It's just—I wish I wasn't a dummy all the time, but I am, and I'm no kind of role model—"
"You're not," she agrees, grips his wrist and strokes the inside with her thumb. "But you're a pretty decent friend. And an okay partner. And—"
"Down," he says suddenly, and an honest-to-god laser beam hits the wall opposite them right when they hit the ground.
"Robots, Clint? Really?"
-
"So, new rule. We don't let me open my big fat mouth in public ever again. Especially around supervillains." He tosses their bags to the floor and edges her out of the doorway to get to the couch first. Kate could trip him, but she's tired and sore and her eyebrows are singed and she likes watching the way his arms drape around the edge of the sofa.
"Amendment," she says, stretching her arms over her head until her back pops. "We don't let you open your big fat mouth ever."
"That's not nice, Hawkeye."
She shrugs. "Maybe I'm not a nice girl. Scoot."
"Nu-uh, girlie."
"Suit yourself," she says, and promptly falls on top of him.
"Aw, c'mon, Katie," he groans, wheezing like she's knocked all the wind out of him. She smiles, wicked and satisfied, and wriggles around until her body is squeezed in between his and the back of the couch, their legs tangled in a haphazard knot. She lets herself lean her head on his chest, listen to the rumble of his breathing. It's not an indulgence, she tells herself. It's just. Comfortable.
"You're all elbows, you know that?" he murmurs into her hair.
"Guess you're just gonna have to get used to it, Hawkeye." It's a tease inasmuch as it's a challenge, and she swallows hard, wishing she could see his face, could gauge his reaction. She closes her eyes instead.
"What're you saying there, Katie?"
"That you're stuck with me. Like it or not." Like it, she thinks desperately, please.
"Is that so," he says, and his laugh is soft and warm under her hands. "Guess I might need a bigger couch, huh?"
"I think we can make do," she says, smiling into his shirt.
Clint tenses for a half a second, and Kate has enough time to berate herself for being pushy and weird before he relaxes and presses his lips so softly against her forehead, holding them there for just a little too long like he's trying to measure his sincerity in expanses of time.
It wouldn't be hard to lever herself on top of him completely, to straddle him like she's thought about doing for god knows how long, to kiss him right, smack on the mouth with teeth and tongues and everything she's been missing, but she doesn't.
His hand drifts down, almost an afterthought, to stroke her hair. It's plenty.