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There was some quote about not meeting your heroes. Kate thought it was bullshit and if she ever saw Hawkeye, she’d cry tears of joy and make a grand speech of appreciation.
She met Hawkeye.
She understood now.
Clint was -at his core- an asshole with a vacancy in his brain where his intelligence used to be. Scratch that. It was still there but used for things like ninja jumping into the kitchen for yogurt. Kate looked at the renowned hero and savior of the world as he attempted to comb applesauce out of his hair (courtesy of a triumphant Nathaniel) and decided she needed a new role model.
Google spat out a list of the Avengers. Kate frowned at the screen. She didn’t want an Avenger. Half of them were… yeah, and the remaining ones were who the hell knows where. Hulk didn’t really fit her style anyway. The only other option was Thor, who was currently in Norway or some shit. She powered off the computer with a groan and decided to switch tactics.
“Nathaniel, who’s your hero?” she asked over a game of catch.
The little boy frowned at the question. Not in a ‘oh boy that’s a toughie’ way, in a ‘this is the easiest question of my life why are you asking me this’ way. ”Dad,” he said, launching the football off-course. Kate leaped to catch it.
“Yeah, but if you couldn’t say your dad, who would it be?” She tossed it underhand. Nathaniel hugged the ball to his chest, almost smacking his chin. Now he was really thinking.
“Aunt Natasha,” he said after a moment. “‘M named after her, yknow.” He threw the ball. It hit the grass five meters to her left and rolled down the hill.
After chasing it down and trudging back up the hill, Kate tried again. “Okay, but if you couldn’t choose Aunt Natasha or your dad, then who?” Nathaniel squinted at her.
“I dunno, Captain America?”
“Which one?” Kate asked hopefully. “The not dead- er, passed away one?”
“Sure. He’s got wings. I want to fly.” Nathaniel made grabby hands for the football. Kate passed it over absentmindedly. “Do ya think he can teach Dad to fly? He’s called Hawkeye. Like a bird. Bird's can fly.”
Sure, kid. Hawkeye needs to work on not tripping on the stairs before he can tackle the aerial world.
If anything, as the new Hawkeye, Kate would grow some fucking wings.
“Have you talked to Cap recently?” Kate asked innocently. Clint still narrowed his eyes at her. Whatever, old man. You don’t awe me anymore.
“No.”
Damn, okay.
“If you wanted to talk to Cap, how would you do… that?” Kate made a mental note to work on tact.
“Kate, why the hell are you trying to talk to Captain America.”
“God, fine. You know how to get to Deadpool?”
Clint was much more conversational after that, and Kate acquired a burner phone with access to Mr. James Barnes, aka Winter Soldier. Clint insisted this was the closest he got, so do not try to find Deadpool.
“Hawkeye?” came the gruff voice. Kate had the innate urge to squeal and maybe launch off the couch.
“That’s me. I am Hawkeye,” she confirmed. “Hello, Mister Barnes sir.”
There was a pause.
Faint murmuring in the background, then he spoke again. “Are you that girl hanging around him?”
Well.
“I’m Hawkeye,” she insisted. “It’s a shared mantle sort of thing.” Jeez, this would get old fast. Maybe she should set up a PSA on Twitter so all the super-people get it. And the general public. “Uh- do you- can I speak to Cap?”
Another pause. This guy really liked his pauses. Then, “You’re on speaker. He’s right here.”
Fuck shit fuck fuck shit
“Heeyyy Cap,” Kate squeaked. “How’s- how’s life man?”
“…Hello, Hawkeye.” Kate pumped a fist in the air. “Is this just a friendly call, or are aliens about to blow up New York again?”
“Nope, no danger, I just have a question. For you.” now that she was here, her original goals floated straight out of her head. What do you say to Avengers? Talking to Clint had been easy enough… kinda. Channel your inner Hawkeye. “Are you a good shot?”
“…With a gun?”
“Uh… just in general.”
“Right. Bucky is more of the sharpshooter,” he spoke slowly, with the voice of someone whose brain hadn’t quite caught up to the situation. Kate checked the time. 5:00 PM, which meant in New York it was 6:00 PM… Maybe Cap just liked to nap. Old people things.
“How sharp? Can you hit things behind your back? Without looking?”
“…Kid, what’s this for?” Barnes asked resignedly. “Clint can do all that. You don’t need me for it.” That was the whole problem in the first place. Fuck Clint, where are the other cool sharpshooter adults.
“I don’t want Clint,” Kate grumbled, glancing suspiciously at the doorway. “He took my pop tart this morning and it was the last one. I really wanted it.” she sniffed.
“What flavor was it?”
“Bucky-”
“What? You’ve got to be stupid to cry over a fucking green apple pop tart-” There were muffled sounds as the two presumably grappled over the phone.
“Everyone is entitled to their own pop tart flavors,” Captain America said seriously.
“Sam, don’t tell me you like the goddamn green apple flavor.”
“It’s kind of shit,” Kate agreed, blinking a stray hair out of her eye. “Mine was just chocolate. Couldn’t find anything else.”
There was a judgemental beat of silence.
“I’m in fucking Missouri, okay?” Kate hissed. “Just confirm you’re cooler than Clint so I can worship you.”
“Clint’s an ass,” Barnes muttered. “Of course, I’m better than him.”
Excellent. The Winter Soldier was the coolest person alive.
“Kid, you do not want Buck as your role model,” Cap said. He sounded actually worried. Aw, that was nice of him. When was his birthday? She wanted to send him a card.
“He’s better than Clint,” she said mutinously. “He fell out of his chair yesterday. Do you fall out of your chair, Mr. Barnes?”
“Never,” Barnes replied solemnly. He seemed to be getting a kick out of the conversation.
Cap was not taking this newly formed alliance well. He actively tried to stop it, but alas the combined prowess was too strong and he was silenced by a pointed comment about pop tarts.
“Word of advice, kid?” Barnes said. “Get your own burner phone. You’ll need your own contacts when shit goes down, not just Clint’s hand me downs.”
Kate was very pleased with her new friends. She didn’t tell Clint this, but she knew he knew in the more frequent scowly moods and angry stirring of cereal.
Yeah, that’s right. Maybe try being more awesome.
She definitely did not flaunt her new phone to anyone. She definitely did not pointedly call Barnes when Clint start raving about fucking bananas. The aghast expression on his face as she greeted Barnes by name was worth every bit of interrupting Barnes’ weekly movie night, and he agreed after Kate described the archer’s expression in vivid detail later that night.
Rules made their way into the calls. First, Kate couldn’t call on Wednesdays because Barnes liked to have a ‘freestyle stalk day’ (his choice of words), and no bothering each other after midnight because that’s an asshole thing to do. Kate also found he was more susceptible to a conversation if she started with a recent embarrassing fact about Clint. The super soldier’s current favorite was a story involving a pair of clippers and some very determined plants.
Sam Wilson had grudgingly passed over his number, saying something about not being able to deny aid if she ever needed it. Superheroes and their savior complexes, man. It was the real deal. Kate was awed to witness such a tragedy up close and personal.
He was boring, Kate found, after he rudely ignored her attempts at pleasant conversation. And unbribable. Clint’s fuckups didn’t interest him.
“Nobody’s perfect,” he wrote, and Kate mimed barfing on her bed. Jeez. Who know such perfect pagans of morality existed in the flesh? No wonder the guy was bent on being the next Captain America. Though, based on the multiple accounts of treason and capital crimes the previous guy had committed, maybe Sam was the better man for the job anyway.
Or maybe not. It’s not America without some light heresy.
Actually, when Kate gave up on her attempts to sell Clint out in exchange for attention, Sam became more conversational. In the worst way possible. He started saying things like “Kate, maybe you and Barton should just talk things out” and “Kate, why are you trashing the guy you’ve looked up to your whole life?”
Boring. Don’t be a therapist, Cap.
“He’s dumb,” she wrote back. It was a mistake. Sam unleashed all of his hidden people skills and wrote a horrifyingly detailed paragraph psychoanalyzing her and explaining why she was pulling away from her “mentor and parental figure”. Fuck you, Sam. She was not trying to make him jealous. No, she didn’t want validation. Besides that, a lot of it was disturbingly accurate, and Kate resolved to delete the message later if she didn’t forget.
Clint seemed to despise the new arrangements more as each day passed. His breaking point was when Kate glanced over at her phone, checking a text, and he slammed his plate down hard enough to crack and marched out of dinner. His wife raised an eyebrow and stared at Kate a little too much for someone who was supposedly in the dark about everything.
“Talk to him,” she said, piling more vegetables on Cooper’s plate. The boy groaned, and Kate sympathized. She felt like sinking into despair too.
She agreed, because Laura was a force of nature, and getting on her bad side was a terrible idea. That didn’t mean she had to like it though. She made that clear through angry huffing and eye rolls in the bathroom mirror. Once she was satisfied, she exited and reluctantly made her way through the house in search of Other Hawkeye.
He was lying facedown on his bed. Kate felt a little bit bad now. She hadn’t meant to send the guy into a depression spiral.
“Are you clinically depressed?” she asked.
“Life is a prison,” he moaned. That was not a yes, so Kate was no longer sorry.
“Cool,” she responded. She put one hand on her hip and stared down at him. She said nothing. What was there to apologize for? Having a friend that did not live with her? Maybe the truth would benefit here.
“Your wife told me to apologize.”
Clint rolled over to his side so he could squint at her. “Are you going to apologize?” he said finally.
“..For what?” Clint huffed. Then sighed. Then covered his face with his hands and screamed. A reliable coping mechanism.
“Seriously man, I dunno what’s up with you.”
“-What’s up with- Kate, you betrayed me!” hmm. Okay, maybe he knew more about the situation than he had been letting on.
“By having a phone?” she waved the object in question. “It’s pretty handy. Totally fucked my other one up.”
“By replacing me,” Clint spat the words out like they were something foul on his tongue. “I got replaced by Barnes, of all people. Can’t you choose anyone else? Scratch that, don’t replace me at all!”
“Your pants are on backward!” Kate gestured furiously. “I don’t want my idol to wear backward pants! That’s shameful for both of us!”
“Like Barnes is any better.”
“He is!”
Clint tilted his head. Kate recognized the motion. It was his weird thing, the eerie silence when he was having a cohesive and intelligent thought. She felt the tingle of dread at the bottom of her neck; it reminded her of the wordy paragraph Sam had sent.
“Kate, none of us are perfect.” she groaned. There were two of them now. When would her pain ever cease.
“Barnes is a dumbass, I can tell you that much. So is Wilson. Hell, so is every fucking person on this goddamn planet. We’re all dumbasses. The wise guy you’re looking for? He doesn’t exist.” Clint was suddenly taking this seriously, jumping straight into I Am An Adult Here Is A Life Lesson mode. “We’re all a bit fucked up. You knew that when you signed on.”
“Actually, I said we all lose something, I didn’t really mean we lose our sanity-” Kate accepted her defeat. She plopped down on the bed next to him, crossing her ankles. “Okay, everyone’s fucked up.” she squinted. “Do they all have problems with gardening, or-”
“Point being,” Clint hissed through gritted teeth, “Barnes isn’t better than me. I’d say, yknow, generally speaking, I’m actually better than him. Better shot, not to brag or anything-”
“I feel like we’ve gotten off-topic,” Kate deadpanned. “That was not the point of this.” His speech was slightly off-kilter and Kate was pretty sure they both were not on the same wavelength (not even remotely close) but she went with what enlightening information had been presented.
“Okay, I’m sorry for thinking you’re lame and trying to get a cooler partner.” Clint groaned again.
“It’s depressing when you say it out loud.”
“Whatever. Apparently, we’re all lame so I should just give up on being cool.”
“Not what I meant,” Clint protested. “I’m just saying, just because I don’t constantly do SHEILD-worthy spy shit doesn’t mean I’ve gotten fuckin’ weak. I just use the skills for other things.”
…This was an option Kate had not considered.
“Like what?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “You don’t have SHIELD-worthy performance in anything these days.”
“Kid, have you seen that pie lately?” Kate assumed he meant the apple pie, which Laura put her entire soul into. It fucking disappeared a night later, foil and all. Kate had been blamed rather viciously by the children, as she had been sighted at the scene last.
“That was all me.”
Her jaw dropped. “No way.” Clint grew visibly smug. “I cannot believe you. They ganged up on me for that, and this whole time?”
“Stole it right under your nose,” he crowed.
Unforgivable. Fuck you and everything you stand for. Fuck, Barnes would probably laugh at her for this. Did this mean Kate was the uncool one? That was so not cool.
“Confess your sins.”
“Not on your life.”
“Clint Hawkeye Barton, you are an asshole and I want you to teach me your ways and give me shared custody of your trick arrows.”
In the heat of it all, she forgot he was actually kind of a genius with those. Huh. Maybe it didn’t hurt to meet your heroes after all. The quote probably lost context when you become your heroes anyway.