Chapter Four
After two or three minutes of leaning against the hood of the car and waiting for her to return, Clint raised his head and he pulled out of his thoughts. How long does a phone call take? He asked, and he crossed his arms, his fingertips pulling at the sleeve of his suit. A large, purple arrow sat on the center of his chest, and it wrinkled as he sat up from leaning on the hood and cleared his throat. He wanted to talk to her today, anyway. Sit her down, talk to her. Something was going on with her, something serious. She didn’t want to tell him, and that was okay, but her being lost in thought was ending up in her getting physically hurt, like that bullet from the previous night. They were partners, one of them needed to bring it up, and it wasn’t going to be her.
He stepped forward and saw the small gate she’d pushed through for a moment of privacy on the phone, but something was different. Call it a gut feeling, but it wasn’t a normal patrol anymore, and part of him knew she had already left before he saw the glass of her phone cracked on the ground beside the daily spin of the bugle. Clint looked up towards the streets looking for her electric purple uniform that matched his, but he didn’t see her. He bent down and carefully picked up the cracked screen of her phone. It was almost funny to him that she still had a flip-phone, when she was part of a family that had most likely millions of dollars. But, there was something honorable about her, she didn’t take any of her father’s money, not after her mother died. He thought that was brave, and probably not something he would do in her position. But, she worked herself hard to keep above the water and still provide for herself. She still gave Clint rent money, even though he would practically shove it back in her hands when she tried to. Usually, he would then mysteriously find the same cash in his back pocket or his wallet a day or two later. He was almost proud, as he was the one to teach her to pickpocket. He created a thieving talent.
Missed call from Cassie (5). Missed call from Billy (3). Unread Messages from Eli (11). Missed call from Derek Bishop (1). Her phone was still vibrating with each second and he narrowed his eyes, placing it back down on the curb and then taking the dirtied paper of the Bugle beside it. It had fallen in a puddle and he brushed it out with his hand, and flipped it over. Her name on the front beside the word Hawkeye. A picture he almost couldn’t recognize because of the cuts and scratches and tears on her face in one of the photographs on the cover, and she looked a little younger. A year, maybe two. But he swallowed when he saw the tears on her cheeks in that photo, because it was someone that he couldn’t recognize. She looked so terrified. Scared. Broken.
The looks he had seen on her face for the past two weeks were a taste of this photograph, and he hesitantly flipped over the sheet of paper and a few words -sentences- stuck out to him through the mass. ‘... cold night…’ ‘... assaulted…’ ‘found by an older couple off the edge of the trail…’ ‘... hospital for two weeks…’ ‘Katheryn Bishop.’ He was still for a few moments, and he didn’t realize how tightly his fingers were grasping the paper until he heard the small sound of his nails ripping through it. There was another photograph on the page. It wasn’t her, however. It was a man. He looked much older than Kate, and Clint assumed he was in his late thirties, early forties, maybe. Clint’s age. It looked like a mugshot, and Clint put two and two together and realized exactly what part of her this article just tore and exposed.
He felt shameful as he read each word, and with each detail there was a roaring of his own blood in his ears. This was his answer, then. This was what happened, this was almost a year ago exactly, this night. He didn’t even know. Clint felt confused for a moment, and then he felt angry. His fingers gripped the paper tightly, and his nails began to dig into the parchment until his fingers nearly dove through the thin paper. He looked at the picture of that man, and there was a smug smile on his face in that photograph. Clint didn’t realize he had become protective of Kate like she was family, but he had. But it was like in a moment, there was a snap of someone’s fingers and this was immediately a different world for her. She had been exposed, her identity, her past. It was like running through the streets naked. It was like being truly alone.
She was truly alone. Her phone rang a few more times, and soon, when he picked it up again, there were unknown numbers texting and calling. Her name was out there now, it clearly didn’t take long for anybody and everybody to find out each and everything they needed to know about her, each thing that made her tick. Clint looked up towards the streets again and rose from bending on his knee, and he realized there was a stinging in his eyes, and he furrowed his eyebrows and wiped his eye, seeing a trace of liquid on his fingertip and he wiped his eyes again in a confusion. He didn’t cry. But, he needed to find her, because she was alone. Not only physically, but really, really alone. It was a lucky thing they both kept tracking arrows, but it was usually meant for the bad guys. Gotta find her.
Part of her was glad that she left her phone behind because she could imagine that it would be ringing every other second with Cassie, or Eli, or the others. She was surprised Billy hadn’t teleported beside her yet, or Tommy hadn’t zoomed through the upper east side and saw the building that she sat on the edge on. It was such a nice view. She sat on the edge of the world trade center and looked down at all of the life in the city, the cars and the taxies passing by. The train always made such a rumble but after living next to it for almost two decades, it was comforting now. It was a lullaby. She needed a lullaby. Kate sipped a drop of her coffee cup and then placed it back on the edge of the building beside her. It was all glass, and she always admired how the sun reflected against the glass, it made it look like an explosion that would never blow. A slow motion car crash.
That was what it felt like right now and she looked down at the paper in her lap, and her photographed face from that night with cuts and scratches hidden under her mascara stains and her tears. Kate didn’t bother to wipe away the tear tracks down her face because she knew they would most likely return, and she was too tired. God, she was so tired. What was the point anymore? Kate took her mask from her face and she looked down at the purple fabric and the small moisture on the underside of the eyes from where she’d been crying. An expression of anger suddenly came over her and her lips pursed tightly together as she clenched her hand around the fabric and suddenly threw it as far away from the edge of the building as she could. Kate watched it sail down towards the streets and land against the roof of a tenant building.
It was such a big city. There were so many people. There were so many faces that would forget hers, and so many eyes that would watch her each day as she walked down the bundle of midtown. There were so many stories. Days that people lived through, and they were good for some faces, horrible for others. Everyone knew her story now. Everyone knew her face. Each detail was released to absolute strangers and she felt absolutely humiliated and so exposed. Kate felt like a deer caught in headlights. The Bugle did this, and part of her was upset, a large part. These people pried into her life, they found out who she was. They crept into each detail of her life, they knew of her father and her mother, and they knew what she survived, they knew what she had been through. All of her friends knew, too.
They all knew. They all read it, and she felt mad for a moment that they read it. Every single person in this city invaded her privacy. Every single person knew where she lived and knew her face now. She carried the mask to keep Kate Bishop away. Hawkeye wasn’t Kate Bishop, she was strong . Hawkeye was a warrior, Hawkeye was a blank slate, and Hawkeye was everything Kate Bishop wasn’t. She was everything Kate Bishop wanted to be. But now, they weren’t apart anymore. They were the same person, but all of those qualities Hawkeye had were gone now and it was just Kate Bishop, who didn’t think she was all of that. Not strong. Not a warrior. Someone who accidentally survived. She wanted to be just Hawkeye again, not Kate Bishop.
This photograph, it used to be her. Now it wasn’t, but after seeing it, it was again. It was this destroyed little girl who didn’t know where she was, and she was overwhelmed and there was too much to look at and it was blinding. It was this alone girl. Her legs hung off the tip of the building and she let her feet dangle in the air, and looked a few dozen stories down towards the people passing below. Which one of them knew her name, or saw that photograph? Did her father see it? Did her father know what she was? Was he disappointed? She was upset that she even cared about that, but she did. No matter how many times she tried to push him out of her life, she still cared what he thought. He was a super villain. He was a monster. He was a murderer. Her father was no better than the villains that she put in prison. But for some reason, she still cared about what he thought of her, and he knew they were destroyed now. Her father wouldn’t look at her like his daughter again, just as hawkeye. She wished she had the capacity to feel something about that, but her eyes were boring down into the paper and her own picture.
She looked like a child in that photo, nothing but a victim of something terrible and it looked like the humanity in her had been stripped away. No one knew. Not even Cassie, or Tommy, or anyone. Not even Clint. She wanted to keep that separate from who she was now because she was ashamed. This was her, this photograph was her. She hated that. Kate turned over the paper and laid it flat beside her, but the wind blew that page open again like it wouldn’t let her forget. What am I supposed to do now? She couldn’t go back to that apartment building, she couldn’t face him and all of the questions. Maybe he wouldn’t even read it, maybe he would have some honor and respect whatever privacy she had left, but she couldn’t expect that from anyone now. She was a show for the public now, a spectacle. Not Hawkeye.
That picture brought sounds with it. Memories. A hand over her mouth telling her to shut up, her teeth trying to sinch into his hand, but it didn’t stop it. Kate could remember the pain of it, she could remember the sound of her muffled screams as she cried for help. No one came to help. She was alone. After it’d happened, she had felt dirty. Kate felt that roar of that feeling now. He had touched her, he’d held her, and she didn’t want anyone to do that again. She could remember what the light of the flashlight felt like on her torn and ripped clothing when that old couple found her off the side of the trail, but the man was already gone. She never learned his name, and she vaguely remembered what he had looked like in the darkness when he was doing it, but mostly she just remembered the pain. Blinding pain. Screaming. Kate’s face and her features were twisted in discomfort and agony as she remembered all of it, but she couldn’t put it away. Not with that picture laying right beside her.
Her arm reached back and took her bow from hitched onto her back and she held it in her hands. It was Clint’s first bow. He gave it to her. It was her most valued belonging. Her hands tightened against the wood and the metal until her knuckles were white with tension. What did this bow mean? It was Hawkeye’s, but that wasn’t her. Not anymore. She couldn’t be this anymore, how was she supposed to represent something so valorous and amazing when everyone knew when and where she came from now? They were able to see beyond her walls and her defense mechanisms. She didn’t like that, not a bit. Kate didn’t like people knowing her, or getting close. People died, and when they were close, it just hurt more, and it would hurt more when they betrayed you. She didn’t exactly have a choice now.
Part of her wanted to drop the bow and just be done with it, but she couldn’t, mainly because it was some part of this gift that meant something to her, and she didn’t want it gone. But, she didn’t want it on her back anymore. It would be a memory of what she was, and she placed it beside her atop the newspaper. No more Hawkeye. Not for me. She shook her head and zipped her jacket, hiding her suit. Her mask was forgotten somewhere in the ally-ways, probably already food for rats. This was it. They wanted to make Kate Bishop Hawkeye, and she wasn’t going to let it happen, she couldn’t tarnish that name by adding her own alongside it. She was done. Clint would figure it out after a few days of radio silence, hopefully, because she couldn’t face him. Not after all of this. The thought of looking him in the eyes with such shame and humiliation in her face made her want to be sick.
The small wrist-watch on her arm was beeping non-stop, which was supposed to be a plan B if either of them were in trouble. It was morse code. He’d taught her how to understand it as a worst-case-scenario if they were binded. She understood the code of her name through the beeps, but of course, he still spoke ‘Katie,’ knowing that little tease between them. It didn’t make her smile this time, though. She was trying to ignore everything, not only that her identity was now out in the open. She was out in the open to everyone who ever knew her, the worst parts of her life were entertainment in the daily paper. She couldn’t be Hawkeye anymore, not with what she was associated with now, and out of sheer rejection and humiliation. ‘Talk… to… me…’ The code ran through her wrist and she furrowed her eyebrows, unlatching it from her wrist and tossing it forward as far as she could once again.
It was so high up here. It was so peaceful. There was no noise other than the cars on the streets hundreds, probably thousands, of feet below, and she spotted the familiar golden metal of the taxis. She looked down to her bow and then took her quiver from her back and sighed, looking out at the city. She was surprised she hadn’t seen Cassie’s gigantic form looking for her, or Billy flying around the city yet. They didn’t have time for her until they did. But, it didn’t matter, she was done with the superhero life, because she’d never had it in the first place. She was never a hero, she was someone wearing a mask. A pretender.
Kate finally dragged her large sleeve up to her fingers and wiped the underside of her eyes, scratching away the dried mascara and eyeliner that had been smeared and she sniffled. Time to go. She didn’t really know where. She couldn’t go home, her father would physically kill her, whatever percentage of daughter he saw in her was gone, and now she was nothing but a thorn in his side, hawkeye, to him. She couldn’t go back to the apartment, looking Clint in the eyes after signing off the bow would be too hard. She just couldn’t do it anymore, this wasn’t what she’d signed up for. She carried the bow to save people, but there were things that she sealed up for a reason, and now everyone knew. People whose names were foriegn now knew everything about her and it wasn’t what she’d signed up for. It was why she wore the mask. That had no reason anymore, and it also meant there was no reason to carry the bow, either.
Still, her eyes caught that photograph of herself beside the man’s photo and she felt sick. There was a footstep behind her and she quickly grabbed the bow once more, drawing an arrow between her fingers off of instinct, but she slowly lowered it and placed it on the ledge beside her like touching it burned her. That was a stupid idea, Clint knew her spots. He knew the places she went to cool off. Should’ve chosen somewhere different. She reprimanded herself and turned back around, looking down at the photograph beside her with a dead face. A small breath escaped him as he sat down beside her, and the paper laid between him, but his gaze wasn’t on it. “... do you know why I love this city?” Clint sighed and she didn’t look up, and her quiver and bow still laid a distance from her, tossed aside like they were nothing.
“Did you read it?” She cut away the inspirational speech that she didn’t need, and it seemed to catch him off guard but he quickly caught his features and calmed them. His gaze already told her that he very much had, and this was exactly what she didn’t want. The look. Not a clear emotion on his face, but a change in the way that his gaze fell upon her that was clear that something had changed. Her hair was down. He had rarely seen her with her hair down, but most of it fell before her eyes and she brushed it behind her ear but it just fell down again because of the soft breeze.
He looked towards the skyline, away from her, and that was when she glanced up towards him and her vision was clear now. It had been blurred by tears, but she could see every mark now, each line of stubble on his face or the familiar bandage across his nose. There was usually a black eye, too, but she was much more graceful than him. Maybe a scratch, but she was usually a lot less crude in fights. She stayed back, shot from afar. He liked to just rush in and blow things up, and fight. “You are Hawkeye. ” He enunciated and she looked at him for a moment but her eyes quickly flashed away. “They can’t tell you who you are. This doesn’t matter.” He assured her and he took the paper, quickly ripping it and then dusting the corpse of it off the edge of the glass they sat on.
She watched each piece flow down towards the streets in the wind, and he studied her as she bored her eyes into each piece of paper like she could still see every word in that article even though it was gone. “... you did read it.” Kate nodded with a small voice and she sniffled, wiping her hair back again. But she hadn’t met his eyes once. He could see the shame in her, but it didn’t belong there. She had nothing to feel ashamed about, not even a little bit. “... so, you know that isn’t true.” Kate picked her legs up and she folded them into her chest with her hands laying on the hills of her knees, and she looked so small. This was something he’d never seen in her, but they were never really vulnerable with each other like this, their interactions were just teasing each other and patrolling around the city. They had those moments, but not this. These two weeks were different, but he knew why now she was so different.
He was too blind to realize it. He thought it was something silly, maybe the troubles of the Young Avengers were bringing her down, but it was much, much worse. It was bad. “... do you know why I started as Hawkeye?” She asked softly and she laid back on the glass of the building they sat on, and he looked back towards her but her eyes were watching each detail of the sky, because she couldn’t look at him. “I wanted to make sure no one had to be a survivor.” Her voice was soft and her eyes moved from cloud to cloud, to a plane that slowly traveled across the cloudy sky, and then a bird that flew above. She eventually felt him sit down beside her and their bodies laid three or four inches apart against the edge of the glass building they sat on. “No one had to be… me.” She shrugged with a pool in her eyes and cleared her throat, though it didn’t do much. She didn’t want to cry in front of Clint. “I’m the fight between a man , and the end of someone’s life.” She said that word with such disgust, such fear. It was quiet for a few moments, and it was clear that she was thinking, remembering. Clint winced at how she said that word and he felt angry that she had to be so disgusted with that word, that he couldn’t fix that memory. He couldn’t take it away.
She chewed her lip to stop it all, but her eyes were stinging and she couldn’t stop it. It was quiet at least. Maybe he wouldn’t see the small drops of liquid that strolled down the hills of her cheeks, but he watched the small implosion of her face. Behind her eyes, there was so much story. Kate opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but she stopped for a moment and her sentence died on her lips. He was a good listener. Kate rathered his quiet while she spoke rather than him lying to her and coming up with some way to try to comfort her. She was holding all of this in, she’d been sealing herself off for a year. It hurt. She wanted all of it out.She swallowed and it was audible, and her eyes weren’t looking at him anymore. They searched each building of the city, busying herself so that it was too much for her to physically see every second of that night in her head. “... I can remember screams.” Her voice was soft but it seemed level for a few seconds, and he could see each thought in her mind, each mental preparation in her eyes. But he was a good listener, and he didn’t speak, he allowed her this moment. “... a hand, on my lips, telling me I was just fine. ” Her fingers reached up and brushed her lips, and she could remember all of it. Her teeth gritted at that last word with white, hot rage rolling off of her body and dissipating into the air. That look, that twist in her features, it stayed for a few moments and her hands curled into tight fists. “Terror.” She shrugged with a rising of her eyebrows but her eyes were still staring towards the sky.
Clint stared at her and slowly, carefully, his hand reached forward and cautiously wrapped around hers, and she looked up and it was the first time that their eyes met. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. He knew she liked the quiet more, anyway. Kate envied his ability to just unplug sometimes. He could take out the aid in his ear and hear absolutely nothing . She envied that right now. His eyes were a deep blue, and they looked like her dad’s eyes, kind of. That light sparkle of deep ocean colors, and such a swarm in his eyes. They looked like her dad’s eyes because it was once how her father looked at her, with that care, that concern. She was scared to go home. She couldn’t. Part of her was actually scared that her dad would hurt her. He was a super-villain, she was Hawkeye. Whatever father had been in her dad was gone, it was gone when he killed her mother. He killed her mother. “I didn’t want anyone to be me.” Kate whispered and she turned her head, sitting up and looking out towards the city and there was the lasting remainder of a tear silently rolling down her cheek. She forgot Clint still held her hand tightly. It felt natural. It felt comforting. But, Kate Bishop and Hawkeye, she used to think of them as Yin and Yang. One couldn’t exist without the other. Now she knew that wasn’t true. “... that doesn’t matter anymore.” She whispered softly under her breath and looked down towards where the newspaper had sat between Clint and her. “God… when I got the bow, I looked for him. I stopped before I actually did, I… I think I would’ve killed him. I dreamed about it.” She shrugged and it was clear she was thinking about it again, and he scooted an inch closer to her slowly.
He slowly sat up and leaned beside her, and released her hand, placing his hand on her shoulder and her head turned towards him. Her eyes looked like that of a doe, and she waited for him to say something. Maybe she wanted him to say something, and she never asked for help, not ever. “I, uh… I made a lot of mistakes. Before.” Clint spoke and he nodded his head gently, and his hand still laid on her shoulder as he looked right into the dark shade of her pupils and the light emerald glints of her eyes. He saw his own reflection in her shimmering eyes, and she looked so sad. “Y’know, when I heard there was another Hawkeye, I thought it was another Tony, another Hank Pym.” Clint shrugged and her body was still extremely tight, uncomfortable, but not because of him. She still had those memories, those screams, those hands, that pain, it was all there. Like it was a day before. “Then you kicked my ass in Central Park, and showed me you were different.” Her features didn’t move. Not even a blink. She looked absolutely hopeless, and he knew that she was absolutely convinced there was nothing he could do about that. Clint wanted to prove her wrong, he wanted to prove wrong the idea that she was alone in all of this.
“I used to think I was mentoring you. Look, I was Hawkeye before. Now, I’m not just S.H.I.E.L.D’s puppy-dog. You did that.” That light, sad smile pulled on his lips subtly and he shook his head, looking out towards the city for a moment and then back to her as she observed him with sad eyes. She was quiet, and her fingers were fumbling with each other.It was quiet for a moment, and his lips parted as he thought of the next thing to say. “This is our city. ” He said softly with a small smile that he put on to try and comfort her, but her mask was so good that he couldn’t see if it was working. “It’s not going to seem like it, but I promise, let me show you that there are people here that are worth fighting for.” He assured her with a twinkle in his eyes that was pleading to meet him halfway with this, but there was such a sense of finality in her gaze. She’d already decided. Say something. His eyes begged her and her eyes flashed between his and then the city before, and then they finally traveled down to her fingers tying with each other in her lap.
“It…” Her voice was barely above a whisper and it was so clear that she was so uncomfortable talking about this was him. She appreciated that even if it was in his eyes, he hadn’t asked once, he only waited for her to say a word. But still, discussing these things felt humiliating. It was something so personal and so kept behind doors, and she wasn’t used to talking about that night. She didn’t like the burning sensation of her slightly shaking fingertips as she talked about it. It felt like her tongue was formed of lead but he was patient. If he had any curiosity, and she was sure he did, he hid it. It helped. “... it took an… hour.” Kate murmured softly and she couldn’t look at him anymore, and her eyes were boring into her cuticles and the colors of her fingernails with such humiliation. He at least needed to know why, why she couldn’t be Hawkeye. Maybe she could make him understand. “... super, super cold. There was this little elderly couple that was jogging by, and they found me off the trail.”
He was watching her and the disgust on her features when she thought of all of it, and the fury radiating off of her. “The man gave me his jacket, and my skirt was… ripped, so, the woman gave me this big coat to cover myself. I was with him… for half an hour. Just… screaming, and ‘no ,’ but he just didn’t… care.” Kate whispered softly and her hair was blocking her eyes from him after a strand of hair fell from behind her ear. He watched and felt his jaw clench and his fingers dug into the interior of his palm, but he didn’t dare move towards her. She looked so defensive, physically, even with him. She hated how vulnerable she sounded and her hand curled into a fist. “... the cops came, and they I’D him… and he got a fine.” Kate shook her head and tucked her hair behind her ear and he could see now the small drops dancing on her cheeks. She didn’t make a sound, though, it was terrifying how quiet she was. “While it was… before they found me, I was just sitting there. ‘Maybe I should call for help,’ ‘I should stand up.’ ” She collected her thoughts and strangely, a destroyed smile drifted on her lips and her eyes flashed up for a moment, and then looked down again in embarrassment. “I remembered that day… I found out my dad was…” Her breath paused for a moment and she opened her lips like she was going to speak but it took her a few seconds. “... you took out those men, I was only… eleven, twelve.” She shrugged and that sad smile stayed on her lips, and he could barely remember that day. “... I almost got up. But, I didn’t. I couldn’t.” Clint swallowed and she looked down, shrugging once more. "... sprained ankle, anyway."
That day. Alleged Kidnapping, Lower Manhattan, victim was a little girl. Her father paid off dozens of cops to turn blind eyes, anyway, which meant the streets were alive with sirens for that little girl. That little girl stabbed a man in his ankle to escape, and she had broken the zip-ties of her own restraints. She saved herself. That was why he remembered that day. This twelve year old child was almost as strong as him, an Avenger, stronger in will. “You… you don’t understand.” She whispered softly and her fingers loosened slightly when she could stop just talking about it. She looked so uncomfortable. “You’re so naive. You haven’t seen the worst of people.” Part of her almost smiled when she thought of Clint’s ironic innocence. He was almost more than double her age and she’d seen something he would never dream of in his worst nightmares. “The world needs more heroes…” She cleared her throat, and looked up and his eyes were studying her, but in a way she didn’t expect. He looked at her differently, but not a bad difference, not out of pity or horror.
Whatever he felt, he hid it, and his face was a mask of comfort for her sake, and the same went for his eyes. “... it doesn’t need more Hawkeye’s.” Kate shook her head and she quickly stood, and her bow and quiver was left sitting beside him. His hand reached for hers once more but it was a forgotten gesture and he called her name but she didn’t listen. Her boots were carrying her towards the door that was the exit from the roof and he looked to her forgotten bow and then her frame walking away from him. He soon stood and took her bow and quiver to return it, but she was gone.
“Kate, wa-” He was too slow, the door was shut quickly and he was alone, and he cursed underneath his breath. He was too slow to say anything to her, and for a few seconds he could hear her footsteps but they were soon gone and he curled his hands into fists. He wanted to listen, but maybe he should’ve said something instead. His eyes bored into the metal sheet of the door for a moment and he took a second to listen to every word she had said over and over and over. ‘...I was just sitting there.’ Clint felt guilty, even though he’d done nothing wrong, and still, he felt guilty. Kate represented something, someone different. He was Clint Bartion, she was Hawkeye. She was the people that he couldn’t save.
He was hawkeye that night, and he didn’t save her. He didn’t save a lot of people from a lot of different things. She was different. She was Hawkeye, and now his bow and his quiver laid beside her like she was turning in her name, too. He wasn’t Hawkeye when she wasn’t. He wasn’t her mentor, he wasn’t her teacher, he was her family now. To her, she wasn’t Hawkeye, anymore. He slowly wrapped his hand around her bow and laid the bow string around his chest, and pulled her quiver on his back. These things weren’t going to be forgotten. They weren’t going to collect dust. He just needed to keep them safe for a moment until he figured out a way to get her back.