Chapter 1
“You need a roommate.” Clint says for what feels like the hundredth time since the man walked through Kate’s door. “Look, you’ve got all this space, and this extra room and everything. Then maybe you could bother them with all of your daily misadventures instead of calling me ten times a day.” He’s smiling, so Kate isn’t actually offended.
It’d been a year since they first met and faced off against Kingpin and they were practically like family now. Clint acted annoyed by that sometimes, but she knew better. Especially when he got all protective. They saw each other at least twice a month- more if something came up. He was starting to take a back seat to being out in the field - for real this time - but he continued to keep an active roll in anything she took part in, even if it was behind the scenes.
Nothing serious was going on now, he was just in town and decided to continue berating her about being on her own.
“Okay, first of all. You love my updates. Or you wouldn’t be here. Second of all, I don’t need a roommate. Third of all, I actually did put up an ad. The first applicant is coming over in…” she peers down at her watch “About fifteen minutes.” She’s leaning against her counter, with arms crossed, smirking at the man who has his legs propped up on her table. However the second she mentioned someone coming over, his legs dropped to the floor and he began messing with his ear piece.
“I’m sorry. I think I misheard you. Did you just say you invited a complete stranger to your home?” He sputters, and Kate just snorts. “Are you insane? Actually, don’t answer that. I already knew you were a little insane. But what if this is one of the bad guys, did you at least do a background check or meet them somewhere neutral first or —“
“Dude. Why do you think I scheduled the interviews for while you’re here? You’re like my buffer,” she shrugs, turning around to grab an apple. “There’s three of them. “A Mike Crabtree, a Josie Uh… Finch I think, and a Peter Parker. Mike should be here first.”
Clint leans forward, and pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. His shoulders rise and fall slowly as he sighed deeply. “I swear to god,” he grumbles under his breath, and he stands up the second someone knocks on the door. “Stay here. I’ll get it,” he orders, and continues to grumble under his breath the whole way to the door. “Inviting strangers to her door when she’s freaking Hawkeye. Freaking idiot.”
Kate rolls her eyes, and takes a bite of her apple, leaning over to get a glimpse of the person at the door. As far as she was concerned, if Clint wanted her to have a roommate - which she suspected was for more than just to keep her from bugging him so much - than he could help field out the applicants.
“Hi, I’m here about the roommate —“
“Hi, Mike. You know who I am?” Clint interjects, before the guy can even finish introducing himself. She can’t get a good look at him, so the dude must not be very tall, and it doesn’t help that Clint is doing his best to block as much of the way in as possible, as if the guy is secretly a member of one of the gangs they routinely fight and there to murder her in her sleep or something.
”You’re Hawkeye. Of course I do, I —“
“So you know, I’m a trained assassin. So if there’s any funny business here, I’ll shut it down,” he moves, and she can’t see exactly but she imagines that he’s crossing his arms to look more intimidating and she takes a bite out of her apple to literally bite back a laugh. Clint’s new position does give her a better glimpse at Mike -
“Right. Actually, my name’s Matt…” Oh, oops. Matt, then.
“Yeah, we’re done here. Thanks for stopping by, forget this address. Bye.” Then before Matt can say anything else, Clint is shutting the door in his face. “I really hope the next two are better than this guy. You two would never get along.”
“Or- we could just give up on the whole roommate thing altogether,” Kate shrugs, tossing her apple from hand to hand. She doesn’t really see the point of a roommate anyway. She’s making enough for the apartment, and she lives a busy lifestyle. She’s not totally against it, but it just feels sort of pointless.
”No, no. You made the ad. I’m proud of you, now you gotta follow through. When is the next one going to get here?” He asks, going back to his spot at the kitchen table.
”In about 30 minutes. Then Peter is 30 minutes after that.”
He nods, and pulls out his phone to call his kids while they wait, and Kate flops down on the couch after she finishes her apple, and lets Netflix choose watch to watch for her. She hears Clint laugh behind her when she does, because she does it all the time, and complains about the choice every single time.
Josie is a no- show. So she makes it through a couple episodes of New Girl before the sound of someone at the door finally filters through the apartment. She reached over to press pause, the same time Clint gets up from the arm chair he’d ended up in over the last hour. “Try to give this one more of a chance than just trying to intimidate him and getting his name wrong,” she warns, getting up after him.
“You got his name wrong first, and I have no regrets.” He shrugs, and a moment later, he’s opening the door. Unlike with Mike - or Matt - he immediately swings his arm around to let the guy in. He must have given off better vibes or something. Which is weird, because he looks like an utter wreck. He stands frozen in the doorway for a total minute, his hands fidgeting with his sleeves anxiously as his eyes dart back and forth between them.
“You a fan or…” Clint prompts, raising his eyebrows pointedly.
“Oh, no- I mean - I am. You guys are great. I’m sorry, I don’t know what my problem is. Umm. I’m Peter. Umm… Peter Parker.” He says finally, and he waves so awkwardly at them that she actually feels sorry for him. But still… there’s something about him that seems genuine. He definitely doesn’t give off any vibes that he might murder her in her sleep, so that’s a plus.
“Yeah, we know.” Kate laughs, and leans over to pat his shoulder, hoping to ease some of the tension. “I’m Kate. Kate Bishop, and this,” she waves her arm around the place as she takes a step back, in what she hopes is a welcoming manner. “Is my apartment.”
She turns to Clint, pressing her lips together in barely contained amusement at the bemused look on his face. “Don’t worry about this guy. He doesn’t live here. He just likes to stop by to make sure I’m feeding myself and harass me. He was supposed to be helping me field through applicants, but he scared off the first guy before he even made it through the door. So, Peter, what brings you here? Looking to save money? Or just want some company? You’re not going to murder me in my sleep are you?”
“Well if I was going to, I wouldn’t just tell you that in the roommate interview, would I?” Peter deadpans.
Clint immediately snorts, and she notices out of the corner of her eye that his shoulders seem to relax some despite the fact that he hadn’t really answered anything. But her own lips are curled in amusement too. “Okay, I like this guy. He may make the cut after all,” Clint chuckles, moving to the fridge to grab a beer before he takes a seat at the kitchen table again. “Oh, wait. I’m sorry. Do you want one?”
Peter blinks owlishly at him, before slowly shaking his head. “No sir. Thank you though.” Some awkward tension seems to seep back into Peter then, and Kate decides to trying to break the ice again.
“Okay, Peter Parker. Do you work? Sorry, I’ve never interviewed someone to be my roommate before, I’m not really sure how this works. Should I give you a tour now, or wait until we make this official?” She shrugs, and looks back to Clint for help, but he just takes a swig of his beer and shrugs too. Okay, so apparently he was taking a complete opposite approach this time than he did with Mike - no, Matt. Jeez. At least she hadn’t gotten Peter’s name wrong yet.
“I’m a photographer. And I deliver pizzas. Nothing special but I get by… well… I can pay my half, it won’t be anything you have to worry about, I promise. But, um, I don’t really know either. I’ve never had a roommate before. Well, unless you count my aunt when she was… Nevermind. That doesn’t count Never-mind. We can do the tour if you want.” He rambles, and Kate can’t figure out if it’s normal for him, or if he’s just nervous. She supposes if he ends up living with her, she’ll find out.
He sort of looks like a lost puppy, and she finds it oddly endearing. And if Clint hasn’t kicked him out yet, he must not be giving off any weird creeper or murder vibes. So there’s that.
“Yeah, sure. We can do the tour. Umm, not a whole lot to see that’s not right here. It’s decent, but not huge,” she says, gesturing for him to follow her further into the apartment. She pointed out the kitchen and the living room again, making sure to tell him they’d be able to share the fridge. Something about that seemed to make him nervous, but she couldn’t figure out why that was yet. She pushed it aside to get on with the tour. Maybe he was just a naturally nervous person.
He seems shocked when he sees the spare room. Laughed, and made a joke about how it was bigger than his entire apartment he had currently. She probably shouldn’t be surprised by that herself, given her knowledge of a lot of New York apartments. Before they leave the room though, he goes straight to the window, and messes around with the lock, opens it, and sticks his body half way out the window to look around. Weird. But she brushes it off as him just assessing the area and possible noise levels from his room. He doesn’t say anything about it. Just nods, and says he ready to move on.
Aside from the bathroom, there’s not much more to see after that though so the tour ends fairly quickly.
After that, Clint decides to jump in with a few semi threatening questions after all before giving his surprising seal of approval. Then they go over details, like what they’d each be responsible for and yada yada before signing a contract that’s very haphazardly put together that Clint scoffs at and then Peter is on his way.
“Well, he’s a little weird, but I don’t hate him. You’ll have to let me know how that goes. Maybe I’ll make another surprise visit sometime,” Clint shrugged, popping another beer and making himself comfortable again. Kate decided that she agreed, and was kind of just happy to be able to relax with Clint for the rest of the evening before he left without any talk of needing a roommate again.