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Kate’s been avoiding him for days and, if that isn’t telling enough, she hasn’t even been attempting to kick his ass during practice, so he’s pretty sure it’s a boy this time.
She gets home, kicks her backpack perfectly unto the couch- showoff- and drops next to it. He’s pretty sure this is her saying she’s ready to talk- recently she’s just been stomping to her room- so he brings over some coffee and joins her on the sagging couch. After a minute, she picks up the coffee- morning coffee reheated, it’s not like he was ready for a heart to heart- and sips it quietly, absentmindedly petting Lucky and looking at Clint from the corner of her eye. He chugs his drink, getting ready.
Her face tips forward, a cascade of hair covering her face and muffling her voice. He signs, “what?” and fiddles with his hearing aid which focuses just in time to hear her give a patented teenage sigh.
“She just left and now I’m questioning what I’ve never thought about myself.”
Clint’s going through Kate’s friends in his mind, albeit very confused. He signs “who?” without thinking.
“America. And you know what the last thing she said to me? Or not the last thing, that would have been too poetic- but she said I ‘wasn’t that straight’ and how do you just leave after that?”
Of course, as his kid is just starting to pour her heart out, someone knocks on the door and there’s a small flood beginning in the basement he should probably see to. He turns around and Kate’s already gone so he goes down to fix it.
After a duct taping a pipe closed and a shower, he goes to Kate’s open room and sits next to her on the bed. She grabs him around the waist and cries into his fresh shirt and he’s reminded briefly of when her mother divorced him to go back Korea and let Kate chose where she wanted to stay.
“Clint?” she squeaks out as she’s calming down, him rubbing her head. “I think I’m bi.”
“Well, you’re in good company, I’m pretty sure Captain America is, too. Besides, isn’t half your team?”
She slugs him in the face with several pillows in quick succession. He doesn’t try to stop them, especially with the hint of a smile on her face. Another deep breath from both of them.
“Do you want to ask America over for dinner and I can kick her ass for breaking my only daughter’s heart?”
“Dad.”
“What? I can’t be protective? I’d kick the ass of anyone who hurt you.”
“Yeah, but she can punch through dimensions.”
“And I never miss, alternative dimensions and aliens or not.”
Kate rolls her eyes.
“Wanna squeeze in some target practice?” he asks her, thinking it’s a pizza night again. “We can walk Lucky down to the range. Maria’ll be happy to see him again, I’m sure.” Sarcasm drips off the last sentence.
Kate nods, starting to get up. Clint’s hand falls down to her shoulder. He thinks briefly of Barney and their parents and all the shit he got into alone at her age.
“Whatever you figure out, you can tell me.” Another small smile starts on her lips and she pushes him off the bed, signaling him to get out of the room.
He’s never been overly protective, figuring Kate can take care of things herself. There’s only so much truth you can hide from a kid, growing up in an extended family of S.H.I.E.L.D. spies and Avenger superheroes. Maybe he vaguely regrets her running away briefly, to start the Young Avengers- but there’s only so much you can be mad at when she’s just trying to save the world, like he was. And maybe he was still trying to be the cool parent, after all the shit Eleanor put her through and all the missteps he took when she was young, but still. She was a good kid. America probably was too, although he was already a bit wary of her just for this. In any case, he was still probably going to have to talk to Nat about this the next down time. This was going to be a shift in his thinking about Kate, but he figured not actually that much…
Lucky was padding after him, sitting next to the door. Next to the door where the leash usually was but wasn’t right now.
“Aww, leash.“