Chapter Three
“Hey, I, uh… I’m going on patrol.” Kate called into his door a few moments after she knocked and her hand anxiously itched the back of her neck, holding the scars she still had on that skin. She brushed the skin and could see the rosy fingernail scratches in her flesh, and her fingers tightened around her flesh before she released them and her hand fell down, taking her bow from the hitch on her quiver. She took one of her arrows and held the tip between her fingers, and she felt the groove of her fingerprints dance on the metal. Kate was standing here before his door, and her face was so tight, because she’d finally decided she was going to tell him. Kate realized that she was so lonely, and she was tired of being alone. She smiled last night, because of him. Clint was a sense of comfort to her, like a really, really older brother… Dad… maybe. Maybe, no. Maybe…
She was tired of having no one. The others on the Young Avengers all were too busy now, and Cassie still texted her or called her sometimes, but it had been almost a week since they had all silently decided to retire. None of them did that, though, she still was out and about on the streets as Hawkeye, but not because she wanted to, she didn’t have a choice. She was a hero, she told herself that. If she didn’t spend every second being a hero and someone died during that time, that was on her. That was why she still went out every night. That was why she saved that girl last night, that girl was her, and no one was there to save Kate, so she did it for everyone else. But she just needed a second to breathe, and she didn’t want to breathe alone anymore. The door finally opened and his hair was spiky and messy, and there was a little bit of tire in his eyes but it sounded like he’d launched up when he realized that she was actually listening to him and telling him she was patrolling. Kate didn’t really see why he was so concerned, but she didn’t see that she had become slower now that she was usually caught in thought. That meant he just had to watch her back. “Let me just suit up.” He nodded and gently closed the door and a small smile spread on her lips. She’d just stop them and tell him after an hour or so of patrol. Lay it down easy, maybe he wouldn’t treat her any different, and maybe she’d have someone who she could lean on who would actually know why she was so… different.
Kate was different from the others on her team, she was the only one who didn’t have powers, -or she thought she was- but she was also the only one who couldn’t just immediately get back up. It took her a few days, she was just a… regular, normal girl. Or, not normal, not after what she was about to tell Clint. After a few minutes, the door opened and she saw the familiar violet arrow on his chest and the quiver strapped on his shoulders. He held his bow, and she held hers. Technically, hers was his original bow from when he first became Hawkeye almost two decades ago. “Alright, let’s go, Hawkeye.”
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“Think it’s them?” Kate asked, and he noticed she was more like herself on patrol, when they were allowed to really be heroes. When she was just plain old Kate Bishop, however, that was when she was reminded of whatever was making her so reserved the past two weeks. When they were allowed to just be Hawkeye, it was easier, because he knew how separate she kept Hawkeye from Kate Bishop. Her father, her mother, all of that destruction in her family and whatever she was keeping from him was behind closed doors, Hawkeye wasn’t. Kate narrowed her eyes as she looked into the scope of her bow and saw those bald men, and they wore velvet jumpsuits and chains. Their name was one of the most ridiculous she’d ever heard, but that was fair, since Clint came up with it. ‘I got it. Tracksuit Mafia.’ ‘How old are you?’
Clint looked towards where her bow was pointing and he rose his own, seeing at the small gaggle of men she was glancing at. They were all crowded around a car and he narrowed his eyes. “Mhm. Looks like-”
“Narcotics deal, maybe.” Kate finished his sentence and he nodded, glancing at her for a moment as she looked towards the tracksuits. She belonged here, as Hawkeye. He knew that she was better at it than he was, probably, and she’d taken over after his ‘death,’ but now he was back. The world was big enough for two Hawkeye’s. He could see why she was getting back into this, when he was still going through his divorce or trying to deal with suddenly being alive again, being Hawkeye was an amazing distraction from the world. It made you feel like a hero. Saving people’s lives could take a little bit of weight off of his back, and she was doing the same thing now to cope with whatever she was hiding from him.
Her draw was still a little slower for a day or two because of her shoulder, but her sleeves covered it. He thought about those scars again, and he wanted to ask her so many questions, but he didn’t. Everyone had their backstories, everyone had a reason for wearing the mask. “Hey, remember that guy I was telling you about? That Greek guy? Uh… Dominic?”
“Domitian?” He scoffed and she nodded with a small smile, looking into the scope and pressing a notch on the tip of her bow, and the audio of the conversation started to play through their ear-pieces. They had thick accents and she could notice some from Brooklyn, and some were Russian.
“Yeah, yeah, that guy.” Kate nodded and he smiled again, but drew his bow once more and watched the men again. They were packing, and looked like some small pistols. It was cloudy weather and it was wet, and they were both perched on the top of the roof of a building. Her hair was tied back due to the wind but some strands still fell in her face and she pulled them behind her ears. This was better. She’d started patrolling by herself a few days ago, mostly so that she wasn’t just sitting alone and thinking things over again and again. That just made it hurt more. But, she wasn’t alone at the minute, at least. It felt better not being alone, but he didn’t know how much better it made her feel. But, he could see part of it in her face, she looked a little more relaxed than she had been for the past two weeks. Her body was less tense and she was talking a little more. Maybe it was over. Maybe she was Katie again. “Remember what I told you about him?”
“He could fire three arrows at once.”
“Yup.” She nodded and he watched with an amused smirk as she took three electric arrows from her quiver and she carefully held each hind of the arrow with her fingers. Kate set it on the aiming bridge of the bow and she looked away from her scope, looking above it as she directed the points of the arrows. He quieted himself, letting her focus and it was silent for a few moments but finally, her fingers released the arrows and each of them split towards the chests of the three men, and quickly, electricity coiled around their body for a moment and they fell unconscious. Her lips curled into a smile and she turned her head and looked at him with a smug look. “Domitian can kiss my ass.”
“Language.” Clint called as they both fired grappling arrows in synchronization, and they landed a few feet from each other. Kate quickly repelled towards where her arrow hand landed and Clint sighed. She was less cautious as of late, she just lept into action like she wanted a fight, to distract her. Her personality seemed almost the same as it had the previous month when she wore the mask, but there were still little traces and small reminders that things were still different. At least she smiled more. “Yup. Tracksuit Mafia.” Clint bent down and lifted one of their masks, recognizing the russian build of the man’s features and he looked back to kate and saw her staring down at the men. She looked like she was lost in thought again, and he stood from leaning on one knee.
When he started walking towards her she slowly snapped out of it and looked up, and he noticed that, too. She was protective of herself, she noticed her own boundaries and defended them, even against him. “... still the stupidest name I have ever heard.” She shook her head and eventually looked down when his eyes were searching hers again. She wasn’t really that good at putting up masks, she wasn’t good at plastering herself behind a wall. She was too open, she let people know her too well, and she knew with how much he knew her like the back of his hand, he would be able to tell something was obviously wrong with her, she just didn’t know he already had. She considered him probably the only family that she had left, even if he didn’t know that. The Young Avengers, they were her family, too. A broken one. With Eli gone, they couldn’t pretend that they could function. Besides, Steve and the others were always slamming them down, trying to push them underground and subdue them. Maybe it stuck this time. “How many more do you think are left?”
He pursed his lips together and looked out towards the car, and it was ratty. The interior was disgusting, but there were small bags in the trunk of… well, he could assume. Kate stepped beside him and unraveled one of the bags, holding up a small blue pill. “It’s MGH.” She said with furrowed eyebrows and there was anger in her eyes when she looked at the tiny capsule of powder and steroids. Eli had these. She didn’t mourn whatever it was Eli and her had, it was never really real. If she had meant anything to him, he would have told her. He wouldn’t have drugged himself onto the team, so ashamed of the fact that he didn’t have powers when she herself didn’t have any. He was so ashamed of that fact, it almost felt like an insult. “This was the stuff Eli was taking.”
“It’s dangerous.” He said after her and carefully took the thing from her fingers, and slipped it back in the bag, zipping it close after. “We should report this to Tony, this is more of his thing.” Clint spoke as he packed away all the small bags into a backpack that laid by the car’s tire, and slung it over his back. “Your friend’s lucky he didn’t do on this stuff.”
“Yup, he’s a real idiot.” Kate agreed with a half smile and he tried the same feature as she packed away the rest in a pocket on her quiver. He locked down the trunk and looked towards the men, they were still unconscious. Those electric arrows were Tony’s idea, the rest of the blueprints were either Kate’s or Clint’s. Sometimes they worked together on it, just stayed up late exploring different ideas that would be illusive and useful in combat. In the beginning, she had some funny ideas, but that was only because she hadn’t really been in the suit for that long. Now she knew her way around her -or, his, really- bow, and the streets. She was more open now, too. She was. Until around two weeks ago, the start of the month. She had talked about her mom sometimes, and there would still be a little bit of sadness to her voice but she didn’t even mention that to the other Young Avengers. He almost felt honored that she trusted him with that information. But for some recent, for these past two weeks, roughly, it had been different. She didn’t talk about anything that could expose what she was feeling. She was so private and protective of letting anyone in. He didn’t know how to climb over those walls she’d raised.
Before she said anything more, there was a vibrating in her pocket and she took her phone from her pocket, seeing Cassie’s name over and over on the screen. Four missed calls? She must not have noticed her phone going off while they were patrolling earlier, mostly because she had turned it off. She was planning on just pulling him aside, sitting him down and telling her what happened to her. She wanted him to know what exactly she had survived, so he would stop worrying. She could see he was, but she wanted to ignore it so she could ignore all of this. She couldn’t ignore it anymore. She was going through something, she had never really recovered. She was still that girl, to her, she was still just that victim. This was hard for her, reaching out for him, reaching out for help. But he was one of the little faces of comfort left, and she needed him right now. But, she was pretty sure he knew it already. She hoped, at least.
‘Kate. Pick up.’ Her texts read and she furrowed her eyes, looking up to Clint for a moment, who was bagging up the rest of the drugs. “... give me a sec.” She asked and he turned back, nodding when he saw her holding her phone, but she was already turned around and walking a few feet away. Maybe it’s another attack… maybe Eli came back. With a swallow, she slid her finger across her phone as Cassie called another time. In her time being Hawkeye alongside him, Clint had taught her, almost forced her, to learn to trust her instincts, trust her gut. Well, her gut had a pretty damn wrong feeling that moment. “Cassie?” Kate asked when the line picked up and she knew she sounded a little more vulnerable than she usually did, but so did Cassie. ‘Kate, have you seen the bugle?’ “Why would I read the Bugle?” Kate asked with a thin tone of resentment, but it was at a low tone. ‘Just…’ “What?”
They had been on a side-street that belonged to a main one on the grid system of the city, and Kate looked back to Clint for a moment before she walked in a hurry towards one of the metallic paper-vendors. ‘... it’s bad.’ She never heard Cassie in that tone, not scared, but she almost sounded sorrowful. Sympathetic. Kate almost smacked the vendor open but she took a paper from the red, metallic slot and quickly flipped it towards the front cover with jumpy hands. The front cover was her, or, two photos of her. Vastly different photos, however. One was her in her suit, with her mask. Looked a few weeks old. The other was more than a year old, and it didn’t have her mask, and she could argue it didn’t have her in it either. It was the photo from that night. The night she’d been found in that park, and there were marks visible over her lips where that man had been covering her mouth, and her finger brushed her lips when she remembered the mark. In the photo, there were tear tracks down her cheeks and her hair was messed from the assault. She looked broken in the photo. ‘Hawkeye: Behind the Scenes.’ The title teased the worst night of her life like it was some reality show and she heard Cassie talking in her ear but she didn’t care and she dropped her phone and heard it crack.
“... oh, my God.” She whispered under her breath and she looked down at the second photo and everything flashed in her mind. The old sound of her own screams, that night, that couple finding her off the side of the path, the hospital after. Her hand slowly drifted above her lips and she released a small exhale, looking down at the photo and blinking rapidly before her vision was blurred with the stinging of tears. Kate whispered that same phrase softly underneath her breath and she sniffled, dropping the newspaper and hearing it flop against the puddle she stood before. I need to get the hell out of here. She felt like she was naked on the street, at least that mask kept all of this away. Kate Bishop wasn’t Hawkeye to the rest of the world. Kate Bishop was a bratty rich girl that no one noticed, Hawkeye was supposed to be different. She wasn’t now, Hawkeye was a bratty rich girl that no one noticed, and Hawkeye was also a victim of something that she wasn’t before. Kate Bishop was, but she saw that picture in the body of that text, his picture. That man’s photograph beside hers. The idea of having him close to her, even figuratively was actually terrifying, and she wrose her wrist towards a fire-escape a few blocks away.
Natasha had helped her figure out non-weaponized grapples, and that came in handy as she grappled towards the fire-escape and left the paper, and her partner, behind. She was escaping. She was running away again. Kate was learning how to get good at that.