Chapter 4
Sometimes, Kate could be like a Chinese puzzle box, all intricate and confusing and ridiculously difficult. You know, if Chinese puzzle boxes screamed at you to go away when you needed the bathroom in the morning, or shot arrows at you from the rafters when it was having a bad day, or played really horrible pop music at full blast at three in the morning whenever it felt like it.
So, yeah, maybe not like a Chinese puzzle box after all.
Where was he going with that again?
Clint rolled his eyes at his own rambling thoughts. He was sitting on a bench outside of Kate’s school with twenty minutes to spare before the bell would ring and she would hop down that ridiculous amount of stairs out front.
He leaned his head back against the bench and let his mind wander again, with nothing better to do. He thought about Kate, the one thing that dominated the majority of his thoughts nowadays.
God, but that kid. They were finally starting to learn to rely on each other a bit more, acting more like real partners rather than two random people who just so happened to have the same call-sign and be in the same general vicinity when shit was going down. In the past, well before Clint had signed those papers, Kate had only shown up at his apartment when strictly necessary (or to bother him when she was bored); she had only asked for his help when she absolutely needed it (or was practically dying); she had even taken his name and his bow and pretty much everything else (purple was hiscolor, dammit!) and had only shown mild embarrassment about it afterwards.
They had so much in common it was almost painful to live with her sometimes. She had always been a stubborn kid, but Clint hadn’t noticed so much when she had only popped up to mess with him every now and then. Her snark put his own to shame occasionally, while also leaving a proud tear in his eye. They fought over Lucky’s affections non-stop (that dog was going to get heart disease from all the greasy pizza they constantly bribed him with). They used the same weapons and had similar skill sets. They shared important values and beliefs.
Even though the girl was still stuck in eighth period, probably glaring at her teacher or throwing wads of paper with scary accuracy at a kid halfway across the room, Clint felt that funny feeling taking up space in his chest against just at the thought of her.
She was his responsibility now. She was his friend. She was his kid, above all.
He would do anything to see her smile, listen to her laugh, and also maybe shoot some bad guys with those funny silly string arrows that Tony had made as a joke (but which Clint had taken with glee and anticipation).
That kid was a goddamn force of nature that he just couldn’t deny. She was the most important part of his day, every day, all the time, and he nearly panicked at the certainty behind the thought, wondering when the hell that had become the truth. He speculated, vaguely queasy at the thought, if this was what parents felt when they thought about their kids. Were they constantly at war with worry and pride over everything they did, like Clint was whenever Kate was out of his sight?
The recent scare with the Tracksuit Mafia, Kate’s blood all over his couch for days afterwards, had really been a turning point for their relationship.
For the better, he guessed.
He was an inherently protective man. Ask anyone at SHIELD and they would roll their eyes and nod along, sighing and pointing out the multitude of recruits Clint had gone against orders to bring in from the cold. It was common knowledge that he collected strays like it was his job and people just sort of expected it of him nowadays. It was one of the reasons why no one who even vaguely knew him had so much as batted an eye when he had announced Kate as his newest project.
That protectiveness translated into the oddest things in everyday life. After he had signed those papers, he found himself nit-picking the grocery list to include more vegetables and fruits and less frozen pizza and candy; when he was at the store, he somehow always wandered into the make-up aisle, searching for things he thought Kate might enjoy; he helped her with homework and listened to her complain about petty teenage angst and got her out of trouble at school when he could.
He was her dad in every way that mattered and that scared the shit out of him.
With that thought banging against the walls of his mind, the school bell rang loud and long and Clint opened his eyes to watch the wave of teenagers pour out of the school like there was a fire nipping at their heels. He watched and he waited, until he saw a familiar head of dark hair heading his way.
She was scowling, surrounded by a group of chattering girls, but the moment she saw Clint her face relaxed, just a little bit. Just to be a little shit, Clint jumped up from the bench and started waving his hands in the air like an idiot.
“Hey, Katie-Kate!” he shouted, waving wildly with a big grin on his face. Her eyes widened in embarrassment and she threw a harried look around herself, trying to see if anyone had noticed he was talking to her. She rushed to him as quickly as she could and threw a hand over his mouth while she used the other to swat his hands back down to his sides.
“Stop that!” she shrieked in exasperation. She seemed to be worried about her image, what people would think about that weirdo picking her up from school, but teenagers were notoriously self-centered; everyone had more important things to pay attention to, and she sighed in relief when she realized this for herself. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked, sounding more relaxed than she had moments earlier.
“What?” Clint said in faux-shock, ducking her hand on his mouth so he could tease her just a little bit more. “I can’t even pick you up from school now? Since when is this a rule?” He pouted, crossing his arms, and just like he was hoping, her smile was back and the scowl had disappeared. Kate rolled her eyes at him and tugged him further down the sidewalk, towards their apartment.
“Don’t be stupid,” she grumbled, dropping his arm once he starting keeping pace with her, leaving it at that.
They walked back to the apartment in relative silence, a comfortable and familiar thing between them now. Kate collapsed onto the couch once she was through the door, glaring at her book bag.
Clint didn’t even want to know what could be so bad, but he couldn’t help laughing at her a little bit, and that drew her attention to him, instead. She always bragged about how mature and self-sufficient she was, but it was nice to see that in some ways, she was still just a teenager.
He took the bait, her sad, sad face staring back at him upside down from the sofa. “Alright. Why the long face, Little Hawkeye?”
“Ew,” she said, her face screwing up in distaste. “Don’t call me that,” she complained. She rolled over on the couch to grudgingly tug at her bag, sighing when everything spilled out onto the floor. “Homework is evil,” she muttered as she pulled her books and paper closer, throwing them haphazardly onto the coffee table, her makeshift desk for everything homework (and food) related.
Clint couldn’t hide his amusement, but figured maybe he should go be amused somewhere else. There was a guiltily grateful feeling swirling in his chest that his own schooling had been cut gloriously short, and he had never had to deal with homework on the same level Kate was, now. When he had been Kate’s age, he had been learning the hard facts of life in the circus. He was about her age when Barney had abandoned him there, leaving him to protect himself for the first time in his entire life.
The thought of his brother still left him grappling with a fiery rage and the cold, detached feeling of being truly, utterly alone.
Huh. Maybe that was why he collected so many strays.
He shook his head and refused to follow that train of thought any further. He had already done far too much introspection for the day; he was all introspection-ed out.
Clint stood in the doorway to the kitchen for another moment, just watching her getting situated with her books and papers and pens before he decided to give her some room to work. She always appreciated that, when he treated her like a responsible adult with her own problems and her own priorities, giving her the room to do what she needed to do on her own terms.
The look of loathsome resignation on her face told him that it was probably going to be a long night for her.
He decided to hang out in the kitchen with his dog and his coffee, two of the three things he loved most in this apartment, going over a few possible missions that he could snatch up if he wanted. Things were different now than they had been even a few weeks ago; now that Kate was living with him full-time, he was reluctant to take the more dangerous, long-term missions. Those had always been his favorites, because they had been in exotic places with interesting people and they were rarely kill orders; it was usually recon, information gathering, and a lot of people-watching.
Wasn’t that a kicker, though? He had never thought twice about what sorts of missions he took in the past, but now he had someone else depending on him to be home for dinner. He had to be more careful.
Disgruntled curses were coming from the living room, continuing to grow in volume and creativeness the darker the sky became outside the kitchen window. After more than an hour of steady cursing, Clint stood and hovered in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, peeking around the corner uncertainly.
Sometimes she made a scene just to let off a little steam.
Sometimes she made a scene to ask for help without asking for help.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, papers and books and pens surrounding her in a mess of chaos like a good, strong wind had blown through and disrupted the entire room. Kate was hunched over the coffee table, glaring at the page before her like it would make sense if only she glared at it a little more. Sometimes she reminded him so strongly of Natasha Romanoff right after he had brought her in to SHIELD that it physically hurt his heart. She had glared at things like that, too, expecting them to do her bidding without her having to lift a finger.
He took a deep, steadying breath and pushed on. “What are you working on, kid? A list of the most creative swear words you can think of?”
Kate’s entire body froze for a fraction of a second, her cheeks coloring slightly, before she was all motion once more. “English essay,” she growled between clenched teeth, stabbing the paper with her pencil as she finished a word, accidentally tearing a jagged hole through the center of the page. “Ugh. Now I have to start over.”
Clint ignored her dramatics, getting to the root of the problem instead. “Essay, huh? Never seen someone scream that much at a piece of paper before. Need some help?”
Kate finally raised her head to meet his gaze, her hair frazzled and her eyes wide. “What do you know about the civil unrest in Syria? You don’t even watch TV unless it’s Dog Cops or bad reality shows.”
“Actually,” Clint pointed out, puffing up his chest and standing tall and proud, showing off (just a little), “I totally know all about that, thanks. I work for an intelligence agency, obviously I know about Syria.”
Kate looked dubious, but she moved over just enough that he could crawl into her nest of papers and books to look over her shoulder and tell her what he could. To her surprise and Clint’s smug delight, he actually was quite helpful, pointing her in the right direction for sources to check and references to use. She hadn’t known where to start, but with his guidance, she had the paper finished long before the night was over.
She leaned back against Clint’s legs behind her, sighing in relief as she finished the final word and shoved the essay away with a satisfied smirk.
Clint watched her fondly, and there it was again, that infuriatingly warm feeling spreading out from his chest and reaching through his body until his everything, from his toes to his hair, was tingling with the sensation. It was becoming a more common occurrence the more Kate’s life intertwined with his own. He couldn’t help the warm smile he shot the back of her head as he patted her shoulder in congratulations.
“Guess what?” he said, leaning over her shoulder when she leaned further into his knees, tipping her head back to meet his gaze. She was smirking now, pride and relief swirling in her expression. “There are tacos in the kitchen,” he revealed reverently, and Kate nearly knocked him over in her haste to leave her papers behind and get to dinner first. Clint stayed sprawled out on the sofa, watching in amusement as Lucky bounded after her, thinking there was a treat for him, too.
That never would have happened before, either, he admitted to himself a bit morosely; Clint had grown up knowing that if you didn’t get to the food first, you probably wouldn’t get to it at all. Old habits were hard to kick, but now he always let Katie get her fill before he dragged his old, tired ass into the kitchen to get his own plate. He never gave it a second thought. And sometimes, if he was lucky, she would be generous and bring him a plate along with one for herself.
Tonight must have been a lucky night, because she returned a few minutes later, two plates piled high with overflowing tacos balanced on her outstretched hands. She shoved one of them in Clint’s face and settled back on the floor with her own.
“Aww, Katie-,” he started, wanting to tease and poke and laugh, but she just looked at him over her shoulder and glared.
There was no real heat to it, of course, but it was the thought that counted. “Don’t say a word, or it’s never happening again,” she warned.
That was bullshit and they both knew it, but Kate had always had a hard time with receiving gratitude.
Clint let them settle into silence, the only sound being their chewing and chomping, and Lucky gnawing on a bone on the other side of the coffee table (so Kate had gotten him a treat, after all!).
The night grew deeper and darker, and Clint reveled in the feeling of Kate leaning against his legs. She was a solid weight there, keeping his thoughts from wandering too far off, like they had earlier in the afternoon. He had always had a problem with daydreaming, with wandering thoughts and wishes.
He brushed a strand of hair out of Kate’s face and back behind her ear, and she sent him a smirk as she took a giant bite of her taco. That fluttery feeling, something like pride and love and admiration all mixed and flowed together until it was one big swirling amalgamation of sensation and thought.
If this is what being a dad felt like, then he never ever wanted to give it up.