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Of all the things Kate Bishop expected to see when she walked into Clint’s apartment on a Saturday morning, it wasn’t this – Hawkeye himself, lying face down in a pool of vomit. He had clearly fallen off the couch, one of his legs still hooked onto the cushion and arms bent at an awkward angle. Lucky was whining, trotting in circles around him, occasionally nudging his owner's head.
“Jesus christ.” Kate groans as she looks around the room. The coffee table was piled with empty beer bottles and the TV was still blaring from when Clint fell asleep the night prior. There goes her nice morning.
Her first course of action was to pull Clint out of his own vomit. She pushes the coffee table aside to be able to better position him. It's awkward with Lucky in the way, and she doesn’t even realize she’s stepped in something until she feels her sock get wet. Right. The vomit. Clints vomit. That is now on her sock.
She is going to fucking kill him for this. If he didn’t manage to first.
“Alright, up you go, jackass.” She huffs, grabbing Clint by the armpits and hauling him up. His limp body is surprisingly heavy, and his vomit-stained lips are pale and skin clammy. His head lulls back as he’s sat back on the couch. The whole thing felt off. Wrong. Something was really, really wrong.
Kate reaches out to hold her hand over his mouth. His breath was barely there – coming in and out in slow, shallow wheezes. She feels herself tense as she runs her fingertips over his skin. His pulse is fluttering – distant.
Okay. right. This was bad. Really, really, really bad.
Kate curses to herself as she grabs her phone from the coffee table. She knocks over a stack of cans, and they go rolling on the table, knocking something to the floor. She dials 911 and lets it ring before leaning down to pick up what had fallen – a bright orange pill bottle, empty. Kate’s eyes practically blur as she reads the information. Her ears start to ring, distantly.
“--llo? Hello? Is someone there?” A high-pitched, gentle voice cuts through the silence. Right. 911.
Kate stutters slightly, looking back at Clint. “Hi – sorry uh– I just found my–” shit what does she say here? “–friend passed out? His breathing is shallow and his pulse is slow and he isn’t waking up and–” Her voice comes out breathless, trembling. Stupid fucking Clint being his own worst fucking enemy. This was unbelievable.
“Hey, hey, slow down, honey.” The woman over the phone says, gently. “Do you know if he’s taken anything?”
“Uh–” Kate stares at the empty pill bottle in her hand. She feels like she's dreaming. “I found an empty bottle of pills on the floor next to the beer he’d been drinking– it was, uh–” she reads off the label to the operator, and none of this feels real, like, at all. This wasnt supposed to be happening. Clint was an avenger. Avengers don't just fucking commit suicide. They're supposed to be better than that. Clint was supposed to be better than that.
“Alright–” The woman seems hesitant. “Do you know how long he’s been passed out?”
“No clue.” Kate answers, honestly, “I just got here and found him like this.”
Kate can hear the woman on the other end of the phone typing furiously. It makes her head feel like it's buzzing.
“Whats the address?” The woman asks, and Kate rattles it off thoughtlessly. She just keeps staring at Clint, like her glare could wake him up or kill him or something.
The ambulance should be there soon. That was good. That just meant she had to – wait. With Clint.
Fuck. Fuck. She should tell an actual Avenger, right? Like – this is way above her pay grade. It's not like she was even related to Clint. They were just – Hawkeye.
Kate paces back and forth as she waits. She checks her phone occasionally, mentally running down the list of Avengers, trying to figure out which one will be the least horrible to try to talk to. It's not like she even has any of their numbers. She doesn’t even really know how to contact them.
Tommy might have Wanda’s number, but Wanda– well– Kate doesn’t exactly want to have to talk to her about this. Like – hey, notoriously crazy woman who goes batshit insane with grief – your friends dying! Maybe Eli has Steve's number? Or some way to contact him?
Stupid fucking Hawkeye and stupid fucking Avengers and stupid fucking Clint. Stupid fucking Clint, especially. He was just a selfish jackass. Stupid fucking selfish jackass.
Lucky whines, poking Clint with his wet nose. It's enough to get Kate to stop her pacing spiral and turn her attention back to the body on the couch. No– not body, because body implies dead, and Clint wasn’t fucking dead yet.
“Hey, Luck, its okay.” Kate says softly, bending down to scratch between the dogs ears. Lucky leans against her touch, his tail wagging gently.
The ambulance gets there fast enough. Kate can do nothing but watch as they haul Clint from the couch and carry him out on a stretcher. One of the EMTs frowns when he sees her.
“Your dad’ll be okay.” He says, in some faux form of comfort. It just makes Kate want to puke. Still, she follows him out of the apartment and watches as Clint gets loaded into the ambulance. It's a completely stupid impulse that has her lurch forward as they start to close the doors.
“Can I come with?” she asks like this wasn’t a terrible idea. Like this was somehow any of her business that she should have any part of. “My cars in the shop.”
The EMTs look at each other hesitantly, before cracking the door open for her. She climbs in with a scowl, sitting down on one of the tiny little seats.
She's stuck between a wall and Clint. Maybe that's how it's always been. Maybe that's what sharing Hawkeye means. It means getting motion sick in the back of an ambulance while your mentor/partner/coworker lays there dying, because he's a sad sack of shit.
Kate stumbles out of the back of the ambulance when they park, her head pounding and world spinning. She nearly vomits as soon as her feet touch solid ground again. She doesn’t have time to think before she’s following Clint as he gets whisked off to god knows where in the emergency room.
She ends up getting stopped in the waiting room, and told to sit. She doesn’t sit, because she isn’t a little bitch. Instead, she paces down the hallway, back and forth, still running through the list of Avengers and who to contact.
She lands on Steve. Sure, they’ve never particularly gotten along, but Clint liked him. It would be fine. This would be fine.
She shoots Eli a quick text asking for the captains number, not really explaining much besides ‘ its about clint ’ and ‘ avengers stuff’
Steve ends up picking up after the third ring. He sounds bright and chipper for it being as early as it was “Hello?”
“Uh–” Kate freezes up. How does she say this? “Hi– this is Kate Bishop. You know. Hawkeye.”
There's a moment of hesitation. “Yes, I do know. Can I ask how you got my private number, Kate?”
“That's not important,” Kate says, which is stupid. She could literally just tell the truth about getting it from Eli. She doubts Steve would care that much. “Clints in the hospital. I think he tried to kill himself.”
The words that come out of her mouth don’t quite feel real. There's some dissonance to it. Like what she said was happening wasn’t really happening. Like she didn’t find Clint how she did.
She can hear Steve’s breathing pick up, slightly. “Right.” His voice is sharp. Tense. “Where are you?”
Kate gives him the information and waits. All of this has been just waiting. Its making her fucking crazy. She doesn’t even know how Clint is doing – if he's alive – or anything. Its making her want to scream.
This was not how she wanted her Saturday morning to go. She wanted to make coffee and practice archery and maybe work on a case or two. She did not want to be handling Clint's bullshit. But that's always what ends up happening, anyway.
When Steve shows up, he looks just as stressed as Kate. He’s on the phone with someone—Kate can’t tell just who, but she assumes it's probably another Avenger or something. She watches closely as Steve talks to the lady at the front desk. The woman says something, turning to point at Kate, and then Steve is bounding over.
“You said you were his daughter?” He asks, somewhere between offended and bewildered. Kate makes a face – her eyebrows scrunch up in annoyance.
“I did not. The EMT assumed I was his daughter and I just didn’t correct him. They wouldn’t have let me ride in the ambulance if I did.” She defends herself, hissing.
“Look–” Steve sighs, rubbing his face in his hands. “It's early. I’m here. I can handle this now. You should go home.”
He’s right. Kate should go home. She even wants to go home. But just the notion of Steve telling her to go home makes her want to stay. Explain that one to the psychiatrist. “No,” she says pointedly.
Steve lets out a drawn-out groan. “You are so– stubborn. ”
Kate would laugh if she had the mental bandwidth to process a single emotion she was feeling. “You just figured that out?”
The two of them sit in the waiting room for a long while. Theres no news about Clint – but Natasha and Tony show up with coffee and bagels and try to tell Kate to go home. She simply grabs a cup of coffee and sits back down in her seat.
Maybe she should call one of her friends. America might have some advice – or she’d be smart, and tell her to get the hell away from Clint – which Kate can’t handle right now. She doesn’t need good, sound advice. She needs to not be the only living Hawkeye.
A nurse comes out sometime later. She looks over at Kate, and Steve, and Nat, and makes a particular face at Tony that's something between shock and confusion and maybe attraction. “You all are here for the overdose case from earlier? Mr. Barton?” she asks.
All four of them nod. Kate can tell Tony’s trying his best not to blow up and go on some sort of ‘my medical advancements are better than yours ’ bullshit rant.
“Well, the good news is that he’s stable.” The nurse says, and the whole group of them lets out a collective sigh of relief. Thank god. “But we want to keep an eye on him for a few days to make sure he fully recovers.”
Steve nods, “You’re going to do a 72 hour hold?” He asks, his tone unreadable. The nurse seems hesitant but nods.
“We think that's best.” She says softly. “Just– overdoses like this– well–”
Kate doesn’t have time for this. She doesn’t want to hear some nurse explain how Clint was a dumb fuck and swallowed a bottle of pills because he was so fucking sad all the time. “Can I see him?”
The nurse stutters, hesitating. “Well– right now we’re delegating visits to only family.”
The whole group of them explodes into demands. Tony’s practically threatening to buy the hospital to get to visit Clint.
And Kate can’t believe she's doing this. She can’t believe she’s going along with this lie. She is actually going to throw up. She puts a hand out to quiet the rest of them, gives her best gentle smile at the nurse, and says “Oh– I’m his daughter. Katherine?”
“ Oh. ” The nurse says softly. “You must be Katie.” Kate’s skin crawls. “Come on, here. He’s been wanting to see you.”
Steve scowls, glaring at Kate as she follows the nurse to the room Clint had been delegated to. It's almost worth it, to see Steve so pissed off.
Clint is just staring up at nothing when Kate walks in the room. He’s wrapped in the itchy ass hospital blankets, and he looks miserable.
“Hey,” Kate speaks up, awkwardly. All that rage from before has completely disappeared. She wants to be angry. She wants to be so fucking angry. She just feels…tired.
“ Katie. ” Clint sighs when he sees her. He visibly relaxes, shoulders slumping slightly and eyes dragging half-lidded and tired. “How are you?”
Kate needs to be angry. She needs to be angry or else she might start crying or something. “I fucking– I fucking –” she stutters out, trying to find something to say. Everything feels jumbled, and all she can focus on is the sound of her blood rushing in her ears. “How could you?!”
Clint doesn’t seem to react. His expression is cool and unchanging. Blank. Maybe he knows her rage is empty. Maybe hes just been waiting to get yelled at. “Kate–”
“Shut up!” Kate snaps, and okay, the rage is coming back, but so are the tears. She takes a sharp breath, reaching up to rub at her face, because she is not going to cry infront of Clint. “You don’t get to try to explain this away. You don’t get to make excuses, Clint. What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
Clint cringes. He can’t bring himself to look at her – he can barely bring himself to speak “I didn’t–”
“No! No excuses! I don’t want to hear it! Do you know how– how terrifying it was to find you? I thought you were going to die, Clint.” Kate hisses. She balls up her fists by her sides, to try to get her hands to stop shaking. She can’t believe this. She can’t believe Clint would do this.
Clint looks down, staring into his lap. He picks at the blanket pills, frowning. He just sits and waits for Kate to stop talking. He doesn’t dare trying to meet her gaze. He’s never seen her cry before; he can’t stand this being the first time. “I didn’t…” He mumbles, half waiting for Kate to interrupt him again.
She just stares down at him, tapping her foot on the floor, arms crossed. Clint knows she’s clearly posturing right now – doing her best to come off as angry rather than hurt. But she doesn’t interrupt this time.
“I didn’t mean to,” Clint says hesitantly, his voice quiet. “I really didn’t. I mean– I didn’t want to…y’know.” He doesn’t know how to explain it. Doesn’t know how to apologize. Kate shouldn’t have been the one to find him like that; it wasn’t fair to her
Kate’s face scrunches up in frustration. She chews at her bottom lip, clearly trying to listen to what he says to say before firing back at him.
“This wasn’t– what it looks like it is.” is the best real answer Clint can give. He waits patiently for Kate’s response.
“I’m supposed to believe that,” Kate says slowly. Her mind is searching for the right thing to say here. She doesn’t think ‘ shut the fuck up, you pathetic motherfucker ’ is quite the right thing, even though that's the only thing her brain is supplying at the moment.
“Yes, you are,” Clint says, his voice unwavering. “Because you trust me. And you know I wouldn’t do something like what you’re thinking.”
“Bullshit.” Kate snaps. She swears, the second he gets discharged from the hospital she’s going to punch him so hard he’ll just get brought back in.
Clint damn near winces at her tone. He reaches out, grabs her hand and holds it.
“Katie.” He hesitates. “I would never lie to you. Not about this. Not about anything. I need you to believe me that this was an accident.”
Something in Kate’s chest cracks. She squeezes his hand back. “I believe you.” She pauses and thinks. Because, she does believe him, that he’s not lying. That this was an accident, probably. “But I still think you need help, Clint.”
Clint freezes up. The terrible thing is that she’s probably right. No one’s ever just said it out loud before. Not this direct. He hates hearing it. He hates all of this. He hates Kate thinking he’s weak, or damaged, or all that shit everyone told him his whole life. He's fucking Hawkeye, alright? He doesn’t need help. He’s vaguely aware of the fact Kate is still talking – something about therapy and or something like that. He doesn’t need therapy. He’s fine.
Clint only tunes back into the conversation when Kate pulls her hand away. He snaps back into himself, blinking once, twice, staring back at Kate’s cold blue eyes. “Sorry– what were you saying?”
Kate shakes her head and lets out a long, tired sigh. God – why couldn’t he just have paid attention? Why couldn’t he get his shit together, at least for her?
“I was saying I needed to go home and take Lucky out. I left him with the neighbors, but the whole thing was rushed.” Kate explains, and yeah, that's valid.
Clint nods. He wants to ask her to stay, or to come back later, or something, but it feels like too much to ask. She already dragged him here – she shouldn’t have to stay and wallow in his bullcrap. “Right.”
Kate seems hesitant. She bites her lip, and looks away. “Just so you know, uh, Steve. Nat and Tony are in the waiting room. Last I heard Tony was trying to buy the hospital. So– good luck with that.”
Oh, fuck. Fucking fuck. Clint lets out a groan and covers his face. This was going to go terribly.
Kate’s stomach sinks as she leaves the building. She just needed out; she couldn’t handle one more second of Clint's sad little fidgeting and remorseful look.
Even still, walking through the New York streets in the middle of January has to be one of the stupidest ideas she’s had in a while, but she hardly even feels the cold. It burns in her lungs and at the tip of her nose, but its better than the smell of vomit. Better than the stale air of the hospital.
She just walks – not aimlessly, per se, but in a sort of wandering way that would result in her getting lost if not for the city's grid pattern. She knows she’s just avoiding going back to the apartment. She doesn’t want to face Clint’s mess. She positively hates dealing with vomit, but if she doesn’t clean it up, no one will. Of course, that really just feels like the story of her relationship with Clint, anyway. Always cleaning up his goddamn messes.
This was just another one to add to the long, long list.