Archive of Our Own

Nobody ever looked at Kate pulling espressos from the vintage Elektra gold dome and thought 'owner,' but that was fine by her. It was her place, bought and paid for, gutted, retrofitted and restored, every decision hers, every square inch precious, and somewhere along the line, she'd gotten to the point that it was so very much a part of her, it didn't matter if anyone else knew it.

Besides, she really liked seeing people react when they found out.

But yeah, it was her place and if somebody came in more than once or twice, Kate counted them as her people, too. She knew what they'd ordered and how they liked it--and she had no idea how this had happened given how she'd grown up, but she got a ton of satisfaction from taking care of everyone.

Of course, some of the people she was taking care of were more interesting than others, but hey, she was reasonably sure a jury of her peers (ie, single and right-down-the-middle-Kinsey, male or female) would not convict her of bad taste when it came to making sure Mr. Espresso Con Panna lounging in the corner was super-definitely taken care of.

With a personal touch.

Of course, Kate being Kate, she just couldn't come out and say that (or anything that sounded like it) so she might have ended up giving him a little bit of a hard time, but she knew when she'd gotten somebody's attention.

"Oh my god," Billy said, making room for her at the register. "Please tell me you did not insult his taste in beverages as an opening comment."

"He is not an espresso con panna and you know it," Kate answered, shrugging.

"Well, yeah, I agree, but you can't just say that to someone, much less the only someone you've been watching with any kind of interest in the last, what? Six months?"

"He knows it, too," Kate said. She ignored the part about how long it'd been since she'd seen anyone who'd registered as anything beyond an order, and watched said person of interest from under her eyelashes. He'd downed the drink in a single swallow and had gone back to his laptop. He had the faintest echo of a smile still lingering around his eyes and mouth, though, and Kate sort of felt like she had the same.

As much as she loved her place, Kate had learned the hard way to keep at least a little bit of time for herself. In the first, chaotic days of learning how to juggle everything, that'd meant she spent a lot of time in the business section of the library, reading anything she could get her hands on. Now that that had smoothed out, she tried for an hour or two at the range, or, if the night before had been one of the crazy ones, she'd sneak in a quick nap and then stretch a little to baby all the muscles she'd over-worked out on the streets and rooftops. Since things had been pretty quiet for almost a week, Kate spent the morning after she'd finally struck up a conversation with her unlikely lover of espresso con panna packing up her gear and settling in for a long, welcome session at an archery range up in Queens. She tended to take her practice time well away from her neighborhood, so nobody would be getting any bright ideas about who she might be, which meant she spent a fair amount of time on the subway with nothing but the music in her headphones. Most days, that was enough, but this morning, she had a practiced smirk and a set of eyes that didn't seem to ever settle down to keep her brain occupied.

Kate knew she'd seen him before and the easy answer of him being a repeat customer wasn't doing it for her. Her parents had given a ton of parties back in the day, but he really didn't fit that profile either. Him looking so familiar bothered her the whole trip up and wouldn't go away even while she stretched and took her warm-up draws. She finally shoved it back out of her conscious mind and settled into her daily drill work. The familiar routine of line-ups and left/right shot sets took over and the rest of the world faded away. By the time she'd worked through all the everyday stuff and spent an hour on anchor points, her brain was calm and smooth, like she heard people say they felt after they'd been meditating.

Kate had come to value the calm almost as much as she valued her skill with a bow, but she hadn't quite realized how much it helped her brain work until a couple hours later when she was flipping through articles, looking for stuff about the neighborhood she could print out and frame for the shop walls, and everything that had bothering her clicked into place at the sight of a blurry, cheesy/heroic group shot of the Avengers back-to-back in the street.

Hawkeye.

He denied it, of course, but he hadn't been in for a week, and Kate had spent a stupid amount of time digging into everything she could find on the Avengers' archer. He was pretty camera shy, but even with him only showing up in a tenth or less of the pictures (and none recently) Kate was more and more sure with every shot. The look on his face when she greeted him by name pretty much sealed the deal, too.

Kate wasn't going to lie: it was a kick to meet the guy who'd taken on aliens with a bow and arrow (seriously, even if the regular media had been all about Iron Man and Captain America, there was enough random footage of Hawkeye on the streets and up on a rooftop to know he'd been taking--and making--some insane shots.) She'd be super-proud of not being a tacky, tongue-tied groupie around him, but the truth was that he was stupid easy to talk to, so she didn't really think she deserved any extra praise for being normal.

She might deserve a little something extra for not looking back over her shoulder when she left the table, but, hey, she knew when a guy was checking her out. Catching him at it wasn't called for at this point in their relationship.

"You did not just punch him in the arm," Billy hissed as Kate got back behind the counter. "What are you, twelve?"

"Shut it, Kaplan," Kate said, still riding the high of the whole conversation. She was tempted to tell him just who Clint was, but not even getting to watch Billy stroke out over that was worth blowing Clint's just-a-normal-guy cover. "He loved it, and we can't all be super-smooth love machines like you and your boy."

Billy rolled his eyes, but he did shut up and went to deal with a customer, leaving Kate before she had to confess to reverse-pickpocketing the guy and slipping him her number. That turned out to be even more of a good thing than she thought, because for all his sighing over her supposed lack of game, Billy was a fierce defender of anyone he called friend and he'd have been super-annoyed that she didn't hear anything from Clint for a couple of weeks. Kate could manage her own disappointment but having to deal with Billy's emotions on top of her own would have really worn her down.

So, yeah, disappointing that she'd misread the interest she'd seen in his eyes, but fine, whatever. The dumbasses she kept meeting while she was out patrolling at night, the ones who always thought the girl with a bow was all talk and no action were excellent focal points for processing negative feelings even before she added in the satisfaction of getting scum off her streets (because, yes, the whole thing where it was her shop, and her people in her shop had gotten extended out to where the area around the shop was hers, too.)

Totally a win-win situation, Kate thought as she pulled out a burner cell to let New York's Finest know they had a present or three, all nice and neat and tied up. Totally.

"Son of a bitch," Kate ground out as she got too close the goddamned tracksuit asshole and he grabbed her by the wrist. She couldn't help the short, sharp yell that ripped out of her throat as he wrenched her arm hard. She hated to give him the satisfaction of hearing her in pain, but she thought he might have dislocated her shoulder.

She should have known better than to actually call anything a win, because she was a long way from that now. Really. The dude the jerks had been messing with before she'd arrived on the scene was hunched over and making more noise than she was, and the other two assholes were standing around, just waiting to weigh in, which meant she was about to be really fucked.

Lovely.

On the flip side, the surge of adrenaline that kicked in as she took in the situation was enough to get her free and get off a pretty damn excellent kick to the balls, even if she did say so herself. The goon went down with pathetic whimper that was way more demeaning than her yell, so that was gratifying. Plus, it gave her time to get an arrow nocked, no matter that her shoulder was screaming in pain.

All she needed to do was shoot-draw-shoot, though, and she could take down both the other goons. She was pretty sure she could tough it out for that long, but when she turned to go for the first one, there was another guy on the scene, someone who looked like he was thoroughly enjoying kicking the shit out of her goons. Under ordinary circumstances, Kate would have been just fine sharing the glory, except the new guy was wearing all black and a mask--a uniform she knew by reputation, if not by personal witness.

Ronin.

Nobody really knew where he'd come from, but he'd been kicking around the edges of the Avengers for long enough that Kate figured he had an inside track there somehow. She'd been lucky to dodge the A-team during her little neighborhood clean-up--they took a dim view of vigilantes outside of their own purview--but the night apparently was cursed. It would have been nice if someone had tipped her off, but she supposed that went against the definition of the word.

Kate kept her bow up and held her ground, and by the time Ronin finished with the lunkheads, she was settled and more sure than she'd dared to hope for, even if the conversation didn't quite go the way she'd expected. For one, he stayed back and didn't try to rush her. And then, there was his body language, how quickly he shifted from putting down the bad guys to checking in with the poor guy who'd gotten jumped (who was still whining, omg) to being all hey-let's-all-take-it-easy-I-just-want-to-talk, and man, did that ping her radar, but her shoulder wasn't going to last long, so once she made sure the damn nosy superhero could take care of the injured guy, she got herself the hell out of there.

To be honest, Kate wasn't exactly sure how she got herself home, because once the adrenaline faded, she could barely stand. Sheer bloody stubbornness, she guessed. That, and every time she shifted the wrong way, it was like someone was shoving an ice pick into her shoulder. She thought her brain might have given up and passed out if it hadn't been getting those regular shocks.

She made it, though, and went straight for the super-family-sized bag of peas she kept in the freezer. She had a roll of duct tape sitting out on the counter, but her brain couldn't quite work out the logistics of cutting strips and taping the bag to her shoulder, so she just stumbled to her futon and huddled into it so the bag stayed in place. Luckily, her stash of naproxen was out on the crate she used as an end table; she dry-swallowed a couple and her brain finally let her gray out for a little while.

It was a couple of hours later, the very darkest part of the night, when Kate finally zoned back in, and the ice and drugs had gotten her shoulder to the point where she wasn't whimpering every time she moved. She wasn't opening the shop in the morning--she tried not to go out on nights where she knew she'd have to be behind the counter by five--but Billy had been staggering around with a fever the night before so she'd sent him home, which meant she was closing by herself. Wearily, she dragged herself off the futon and went to wash her face and take another round of painkillers. She'd kill for a shower, but there was no way she was getting out of her shirt without cutting it off.

The plan had been to go get some range time in during the morning, but even after a night of ice and elevation (and how fun had it been, sleeping sitting up? The answer, Kate told herself, was a big fat ZERO), everything was still tender and aching. She still couldn't get her shirt off over her head without wanting to cry, so yeah, clearly, the range wasn't happening.

"Sucks," Kate ground out. "Sucks, sucks, sucks." There was no way out but through, so she sat her ass back down on the couch and did the RICE thing. It was the most boring day ever, but twelve hours of ice packs on and off, a nifty shoulder wrap (again, ask her how much fun it'd been to wrap that one-handed and the answer was right back to the big, fat zero), and judicious use of anti-inflammatories and painkillers, and she felt like she could probably make it through the night at the shop.

It was a pretty slow evening, which was for the best, she supposed. She tucked her left hand into the pocket of her jeans, just to keep the weight of her arm off her shoulder, and challenged herself to see how long she could keep it there, see how much of her normal routine she could do one-handed. It wasn't the best night ever, but it wasn't the worst, even before Clint walked in and Kate felt that extra spike of energy she got around him.

Of course, he came in during the one time she'd had more than a couple people waiting on orders, so it took her a little while to set up his espresso and take it over to where he was frowning at his laptop. They had their usual back-and-forth, like Kate hadn't slipped him her number and he hadn't disappeared for a couple of weeks, and it was fun and all, but Kate really needed to know.

"So, were you planning on calling or was I barking up the wrong tree?" It came out a little less confident than she'd hoped for, but she was pretty sure she didn't sound like too much of a clingy twit, especially when he answered right back.

"Not barking up the wrong tree, just got caught up with some work stuff," and, duh, yeah, Kate told herself. She should have taken the whole Avenger-thing into account, even if Hawkeye was pretty quiet these days. "I'm leaving town tomorrow again, though," he added. "Heading out around noon. Not sure when I'll be back."

Kate sure as hell wasn't going to wait around for another couple of weeks, and from the sneaky little grin she got when she announced, "Tonight, then. If you're up for it," she was pretty sure he agreed. They could start off with him coming back to walk her home after she closed and see what happened after that. Billy was going to be annoyed that she'd gone off and actually made a date while he was gone, but he'd get over it sooner or later. Plus, he'd been the one who'd been pushing her to get back up on that horse since about a month after Noh-Varr had given her the 'it's not you, it's me, let's be friends'speech, so now he could shut up about that, too.

The rest of the night crawled by, but it was finally 10 and Kate could lock the front door and start cleaning the place up. She'd done pretty well with not using her arm behind the counter, but it took forever to go through the end-of-night routine with only one hand, and Clint was knocking on the window long before she was ready to go.

Somebody was looking out for her, though, because all he did was insist on helping, not even pulling a face when she asked him to take the trash out. Things on her personal front were definitely looking up.

And really, you'd think she'd learned better than to think shit like that, because she'd barely even finished the thought when Clint was back in the front room, the door to the alley booming shut behind him. He didn't stop, just went straight to the the front door and looked carefully out through the blinds.

"You might have a problem," he said. He'd lost the playful tone, the one that called her 'girlie' and 'Katie,' and for the first time, Kate heard who she was pretty sure was Hawkeye. "You ever been visited by some mobsters? Guys who wear tracksuits all the time?"

"Shit," Kate answered. "Shit." Those guys were seriously bad news. She'd taken them on before, but that was from behind the mask. She could take them on again, no problem, but Clint was right there and she didn't think he was leaving.

"I'll take that as a yes," Clint said, and yeah, there was no way she was going to get him to leave her to deal with them, not with how tight his mouth and jaw were.

Shit, Kate thought one last time, and reached under the counter to pull out her bow. Nobody was messing with her place, even if it did mean she was going to have to explain a lot of things to Clint, things that were more than likely killing their date before it even got started.

She set the bag on the counter and avoided Clint's eyes for another few seconds. It wasn't going to change anything, but she could give herself at least that much time before she was going to have to put that side of her out in public.

"You got a bow in there?" Clint asked. Kate froze at the words. "Sure you can pull it with that shoulder?"

"How did you--I mean, what are you--" --talking about, she meant to say, but he just pointed to himself and said, "Ronin."

Kate was gaping at him, she knew she had to look like an idiot, but seriously? The first guy in months that'd gotten her attention, and he was a set-up?

"You have got to be kidding me," she snarled. If that didn't just describe her life, she didn't know what did.

"Do I look like I'm kidding you?" His voice was sharp and no nonsense, and Right, Kate thought. Bigger issues than her personal life here. "Be honest about the shoulder," he said. "That looked rough. I can take the bow--"

"Nah," Kate said, rolling her shoulder. It wasn't 100%, but it'd be okay. "I can do the bow." She laid her stuff out on the counter and slung the quiver across her back. "No grappling though."

"That's all me, then." Clint grinned at her, feral and intense, and Kate found herself answering in kind, energy sparking between them like a live wire.

Down, girl, she told herself, and went to look out the front window with him. She had to press close to get the angle of where he was trying to show her, but the sight of the damn tracksuit goons kept her focused on the issue at hand. Clint didn't have a problem splitting up, trusting her to take care of the ones in the back without even a split second of hesitation, which, okay, definitely a point in his favor. It sure as hell didn't make up for the part where he was there to give her the leave-this-to-the-professionals speech, but it didn't weigh down the scale any further.

Kate took all that swirling emotion and twisted it down inside her so she could go out the back door as quietly as possible. It took no time to find her targets; she watched them for a second or two, and then just stepped out from behind the dumpster and fired four arrows, smooth and precise. Her shoulder twinged, but all the anger and frustration and, yeah, let's be honest, Kate told herself, all the attraction that apparently wasn't going anywhere--all of that was surging through her and those assholes never had a chance. She pinned both of them to the wall behind them, one arrow through each shoulder before they ever even saw the first one hit.

They were yelling and cursing in Russian as she jogged past them. She'd heard it all before, but she made a point to stop and turn around so she could smile at them.

"My place," she said. "Mine." She pulled another arrow out of her quiver, nocking it slow and careful. She thought her smile might have gotten bigger, but that was completely involuntary. "Mine," she breathed as she drew, and they both finally shut up. "Tell all your friends."

She stared them down for a few more seconds, and then, quickly, before she could give in to the temptation to do something worse, smacked them each in the head with the edge of her bow and backed away to go see if Clint needed any help. (And yeah, she really, really was tempted not to leave it there, but she did walk away, go her.) He had his guys down and bleeding profusely from head wounds that were sized and placed like he'd just slammed them together.

"Take a message to your boss for me," he was saying. "This is the Avengers' favorite coffee shop, capisce?"

The idiots looked like they were actually going to try for him, so Kate drew hard and said, "I'd do what the guy said."

They hesitated yet again, and something really savage inside Kate was howling to break free and take them down. They finally staggered off to go find their friends, though, and Kate felt a little of the fury ease.

Only a little, though, because when Clint said, "Well?" and gestured to where she still hadn't lowered her bow, words came flying out of her mouth.

"This the part where you tell me to cut it out? Quit?" All that anger was still with her; she was shaking from it and it was hard to catch her breath. "That's how you know who I am, right? How long have you been following me?"

"What'd you do with the other guys?" he asked, which wasn't a goddamn answer, but he held up his hands in an easy sort of surrender and she sighed.

"They're out cold."

"Still want that walk home?"

And the thing was, Kate did want it. She'd liked him right from the start, from even before she'd figured out he was Hawkeye, and her brain wasn't getting the message that he'd been spying on her. She glared at him, almost daring him to say something more, to answer the damn question she'd asked before, but he just stood there, relaxed and calm, not even breathing heavy from having taken out two of the goons, and waited her out.

"Let me get my bag," Kate finally muttered. While she packed up her stuff, she heard him on his phone, talking to somebody he knew pretty well down at the precinct, setting it up so the cops would do a ride-by or three overnight, make sure nobody came after the shop. It was a nice thing to do, but still didn't make up for the spying thing, Kate reminded herself. She kept a pretty pointed silence almost all the way to her apartment; when he finally broke it, it wasn't to lecture her, or tell her she needed to back off, but to ask what the goons were after.

"Protection racket," Kate bit out. It was too bad she was still pissed at him, because she'd been looking forward to seeing his reaction when he found out she wasn't just some barista. The look on his face when she made it clear who owned the place was pretty excellent, but it didn't matter. She was hurt and mad and just generally done with it all.

They'd made it to her building and Kate was out of time to decide what it was she was going to say. She jumped for the ladder on the fire escape and just went for it. It wasn't like not saying anything was going to salvage what she thought they might have had. "Look, I'm not going to stop." Clint started to say something, but she really didn't want to hear it. "I'm good. Really good. You know it."

"Yeah, you are," he said, which was not at all what Kate was expecting to hear. Like, not even on the list of things she had a response for.

"Aren't you gonna to tell me I have to stop? That I'm putting myself and others in danger, yadda, yadda?"

"Look," Clint sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "I only figured out that it was you, that you were the vigilante today."

So much tension went out of Kate at hearing that, she had to hold onto the ladder to keep vertical. Apparently, she was a whole lot more invested in this, this whatever-it-was that was going on between them than she'd thought and hearing that he hadn't actually been spying on her was almost enough to take her brain offline.

"So, yeah," Clint was saying, and there was something in his body language that said he was as unsure about this as she was, "That's what I was gonna do. But honestly, I'd rather work with you than against you. If you're interested."

"For real?" Kate asked. It was all just too much like exactly what she wanted to hear, a little too easy to believe. "This isn't a trick?"

"No tricks," Clint said, sure and firm. He stepped up closer to where she was standing on the bottom rung of the ladder and touched her arm, light and almost tentative. It really was everything she wanted to hear--which of course made her suspicious. A little voice in the back of her head (one that sounded exactly like Billy, fuck her life) poked at her, pointing out that all the doubt was probably her own trust issues and that she had to take the leap sometime, and yeah, nothing was for certain, but for god's sake, get back out there and at least give it a try.

Almost just to shut her brain up, Kate leaned forward and brushed her mouth over Clint's, and even with only that tiiiiny bit of contact, everything she'd been feeling for weeks and weeks crackled back to life. She kissed him for real then, one hand coming up to stroke through the short hair at the base of his skull, and that… that was definitely the way to go. He moved closer to her, his hands still careful on her arms, but kissing her back with an edge that somehow brought Hawkeye and Ronin together with the guy who ordered espresso con panna without the faintest idea of what it was, and then drank every single one of the cups she'd brought him without a complaint.

Clearly, the best of both worlds.

A month later, and Kate wasn't so sure. She'd told Billy about Clint walking her home, and he, predictably enough, had jumped all over the idea of Kate getting back into the dating game. Kate could be honest enough with herself to admit she'd kind of run with it, too. For a couple of kisses and hands in completely G-rated territory, it had been a hell of an end to the night. Of course, then Clint promptly disappeared again (which, yes, she'd known going in) and she hadn't heard zip about him. Billy, clearly of the opinion that she'd been dumped, had taken to long sympathetic looks and treating her like a fragile little goddamned flower.

It was making her fucking insane.

Kate would have totally lost it by the third week if she hadn't been going out and kicking the shit out of random idiotic bad guys (at least the Tracksuit Draculas had taken the warning to heart and weren't hassling her or hers, but the rest of New York's criminal population was filling in nicely.) The night Billy tried to tactfully suggest that she should move on was pretty much the end, though. She couldn't tell him that Clint was off being a super-hero somewhere, not without telling who Clint really was, and even if she did spill to Billy, she still had no idea what was going on. Every spare minute she'd had, she'd been hunting through news reports and twitter feeds and the super hero message boards, looking for anything that could be him. Hell, she'd even started trawling the Avenger groupies on tumblr, but there. was. nothing. No Ronin, no Hawkeye, no random dude with a bow saving the day anywhere.

Kate was starting to get kind of scared, and she really didn't do scared well.

Thirty-three days after Clint had left, Kate told Billy she needed some time and left him to close up while she made her way to Tony Stark's neighborhood of Manhattan. She walked into the lobby of Avenger's Tower and told the polite security guy that she'd really like to talk to someone about Clint Barton. When he (politely) put her off, she (equally politely--hey, growing up a debutante meant she totally knew how to throw a tantrum with extreme manners) told him she wasn't leaving until someone who knew something about Hawkeye and his alter ego came to talk to her.

"The one that lost the love of purple and turned to basic black," Kate said, smiling with a fake sweetness that didn't even begin to mask the coldness in her eyes. "Also, he kind of ditched the bow, which is a pretty stupid idea if you ask me." She managed to find the key to all the riches in there somewhere, because two seconds after she stopped talking, the security guy's phone rang and she was being escorted into a private elevator.

The elevator was wicked fast and Kate actually hadn't expected to triumph so easily, so she was still a little off-her-game when the door opened on the 82nd floor and Captain-Freaking-America was waiting for her.

"Miss Bishop?" he asked, and wow, did he ever have a stick up his ass about something.

"Do I want to know how you know who I am?" Kate snapped.

"Cameras everywhere and the world's best facial recognition software."

"Holy shit, I walked forty blocks through the city today and you still win for creepiest thing said to me." In her wildest dreams, Kate could never have come up with this conversation.

"I like to know who's asking questions about my team's secret identities." He had his arms crossed and his eyes were cool and more than a little disapproving. It took everything Kate had not to squirm like a little kid.

"Okay, valid point," she conceded. "But still, really fucking creepy." Aaaaaaand that was twice now that she'd cursed at Captain America in the space of a minute. What was her life? "You could have just asked, and then you'd have known whether I was telling the truth."

"No one outside of the team knows that Hawkeye is working with another cover," he said. "No one. Your cute little comment kicked up an alert that had us all scrambling."

"Look," Kate said. "I've known for a while now and I haven't said a word. You know it's true--whatever you use to monitor this kind of crap would have triggered something by now if I was lying. I just--" She took a deep, steadying breath. "He left and I haven't heard anything in, like, a month. So, I came to see what I could find out."

"He's been on… an assignment," he said. "One of the ones where we don't really hear anything until it's all over."

"Well, that just eased my mind," Kate said. "Totally," and hey, look there, Captain America did get sarcasm. She hoped his mouth froze in that pissy little bow; it'd serve him right. She crossed her arms and glared right back at him. "All I want to know is if he's okay."

He looked at her for a long, long few seconds (and holy crap, it was downright nerve-wracking when Captain America was sizing you up, Kate wasn't going to lie about that), and then finally said, "As far as we know, with check-ins and passive monitoring, he's fine."

All the air whooshed out of Kate's lungs and she closed her eyes for a second or two, but she had herself pulled back together by the time she opened them again. "Thank you," she said, and turned to go. "That's really all I wanted to know."

"If you leave your information, I'll see that someone contacts you if there's any news."

"What, like you don't already know all that?" Kate asked as the elevator doors opened.

"Somebody probably does," he said, and she thought he sounded maybe a little bit abashed. "I, uh, thought this would be a little less, uh, creepy?"

Kate snorted. "Well, you're not wrong there." She scribbled her phone number on the pad he held out. "Texting is fine."

She held it together as the elevator took her back down to the lobby, and then walked with as much attitude as she could muster across the whole damn marble expanse of it. Just for good measure, she waited until she was three blocks away and on the other side of the street before she stopped and leaned against the side of a building, hugging herself to keep from shaking. "He's okay," she told herself. "Captain America said he was."

She was finally catching on about how the sweeping statements of how awesome life was tended to rebound on her, but she thought it'd be all right if she held onto the idea that everything hadn't been totally fucked to hell and back yet.

A week (and three texts from a blanked-out number--she was totally going to have to give the 'this is also creepy' speech at some point--that basically said, 'yeah, still fine') later, Kate was fighting with the frother when Billy elbowed her in the ribs and she looked up to see a battered and limping, but otherwise whole, Clint Barton in the doorway.

Kate very carefully put all the pieces of the stupid futzing machine on the counter and walked out to meet him.

"You look like shit," she said.

"Pretty much feel like that, too, girlie." His voice sounded like somebody had reached down his throat and ran a grater over his vocal cords. Kate didn't think too hard about it because she was uncomfortably aware that something exactly like that (or worse) might have actually happened.

"Well, sit down before you fall down," Kate told him. She could see Billy out of the corner of her eye. He was making horrified faces--at how unromantic she sounded, Kate guessed--but something around Clint's eye relaxed, and she knew she'd gotten it right. He limped off to his favorite corner and Kate went behind the counter to see what she could fix for him. She was pretty sure he'd take whatever she put in front of him, but jeez, she thought, watching him ease into the armchair, the guy could barely sit down without it looking painful. She could at least make him stuff he'd like.

Billy was dying to say something, Kate could tell, but a group of kids came in, every one of them with complicated orders, so she escaped while he was dealing with all of them. Clint had his laptop open and was frowning at it, not angry, Kate thought, just tired and not wanting to deal. She slid the glass onto the side table and dropped down into chair next to him. He eyed the tall glass warily.

"Don't start," Kate told him. "I know it's not your usual, but your throat really doesn't sound like it needs hot espresso poured over it." She waited in pointed silence until Clint shrugged. "So. That is Kaplan's prized cold brew, iced, with a little mint in it."

"It's the trendy thing, isn't it," Clint said, all suspicious now.

"It is. But--" Kate held up a hand to stop the whine she could see starting. "Before you give me the tragic eyes, it's probably got four times the caffeine than that little shot you drink."

"I kinda like the whipped cream," Clint muttered, sounding sad and pathetic.

"You are very predictable," Kate said, holding up the CO₂ cannister. She covered the entire top of the glass with a layer of whipped cream an inch thick and laughed at how satisfied he looked after the first sip.

"Thanks, Katie-Kate." He poked around with a straw, dragging patterns in the whipped cream. "I heard you and Cap had a... talk."

"FYI, I am pretty low-maintenance," Kate said, "but apparently my line gets crossed after a month of not hearing anything, and then it irritates the fuck out of me when people don't want to answer my very reasonable questions."

"A month," Clint said. "Got it." He shook out a couple of pills and swallowed them with his next drink of coffee. "It wasn't supposed to be that long."

"Yeah, and according to your precious Cap, you're supposed to be okay, which I'm not really seeing."

"Nothing's broken." Clint shrugged and touched the bandage on his cheekbone. "Didn't need stitches here, the butterfly worked okay. Just sore and beat to hell." Kate didn't even bother trying to not roll her eyes. Clint fumbled the little bottle of pills out of his pocket and showed it to her. "See? Nothing but naproxen. Not even prescription strength."

"Goody," Kate muttered.

"'S my job," Clint said. "Happens more often than not." For all that he was projecting casual for all he was worth, he was watching her closely, like he was waiting for her to go off on him.

"I'm not telling you not to do it," Kate said. "It'd be pretty hypocritical of me. I'm just pointing out that this--" She nodded at the bruises she could see-- "isn't really a sane definition of 'okay.'"

"Yeah, no. You're not wrong," Clint said. "It kinda is what it is, though." It got quiet for a little while. Billy had taken care of his high school mob and was now wiping down counters and trying like hell to eavesdrop. Clint poked at the keys on his laptop and then finally sighed. "Look, I need to head back to my place tonight--my dog pretty much hates it when I'm gone, so I try to be around when I'm not off on a job, but if you want to come by, I can wait 'til you're done here."

"Yeah," Kate said. "That could work."

He smiled at her like he was honestly surprised she was agreeing, like he'd totally forgotten that she went and yelled at Captain America over him. She'd roll her eyes except it had been a really long time since anybody'd looked that happy about her wanting to spend time with them. It was pretty goddamned nice.

Billy was so excited for her that he almost fell over; between Kate actually having plans and Teddy showing up to wait for Billy for their plans, they finished up closing in record time. Clint was actually moving around a lot better than he had been, but Kate still stood firm on calling a cab.

"I'm not calling you a delicate flower," Kate pointed out. "I'm just saying I'd be happier if you saved up your energy for stuff that's more fun than the subway."

Clint still grumbled, and it turned out he could be really damned sneaky and paid the driver without Kate even noticing, but once they got up to his place and met the dog (who took to Kate right off), he got over himself and quirked an eyebrow at her. "You said something about fun stuff?"

"Please don't tell me that's all the game you've got," Kate answered, but she let him tug her over to the couch.

"I'm better with actions, girlie," he said, easing them down into the corner. Kate didn't miss how he let her pick where she wanted to be. She was good with crawling up onto his lap and straddling him, but she appreciated having the choice. He grinned at her and ducked his head down to kiss along her jaw.

"Actions work for me," she answered, a little on the breathless side. He slanted a smug, very self-satisfied glance up at her, which she would ordinarily not put up with, but since she was already almost shaking from nothing but his hands on her hips and his mouth on her neck, she let it slide this once and set about seeing what would get him going, too.

Her hands in his hair--she remembered that from their one kiss--was a good start, and when he tilted his head up and moved the kisses up to her mouth, she added a quick bite to the mix. That got her a low, almost soundless growl that twisted everything inside her that much tighter. He liked her mouth on his neck, too, and by the time they traded off back and forth a couple of times, she'd gotten his shirt pushed up and her hands up under the rest of it, and he was rocking up into her with a slow, easy rhythm that had her aching for more.

"Katie," Clint murmured against her skin. "Katie, hold up a minute." Kate dragged her mouth away from the spot under his jaw that made him go boneless under her and forced her eyes to focus on him. "Hey," he said, smiling. "I dunno where you see this going, but my stuff is all up in the bedroom." He kissed her again, long and lazy. "Your call, I just thought I'd mention it before things got too far along."

"Why's it my call?" Kate could feel how hard he was just from the kissing and a little bit of petting.

"Because I can barely remember what it is to be twenty-one."

"You're not that old," Kate scoffed. She was thinking ten years difference between them, but she wasn't going to blink at fifteen either.

"Maybe." He shrugged. "I guess. I was basically a mess then, so not exactly anything I'm going to trust for now." His eyes were clear and serious, and once more, Kate appreciated having the choice, but it wasn't even close.

"Upstairs," she told him. His hands tightened on her hips, just enough that she could push into them. "Life's too short, you know?"

"Yeah, girlie," he said, sliding his hand into her hair and tilting her head down so he could kiss her again, harder and rougher this time. "I do know."

Kate scrambled up off his lap, wavering a little as her legs took all her weight again, but steadying out and holding out a hand to haul him up. Clint reached back and dragged his t-shirt the rest of the way off, which would have been an excellent thing except for how Kate could see all the bruises over his ribs, like someone had taken him down and stomped all over him. Life really was too short, she thought, and towed him over to the stairs.

They managed to get up to the loft without tripping and breaking any bones in the fall that was just waiting to happen, losing Kate's shirt on the way up and her jeans at the foot of the bed. Clint took direction really well, getting on the bed and braced against the wall at the head when Kate pushed him that way, smirking at her as she crawled up over him.

"Sue me, I like it like this," Kate said, settling back into his lap again. His arms came up around her, stroking up her back and back down, fingers teasing at her bra and then dipping under the elastic of her thong, long, slow movements that had her arching back for more.

"No complaints," Clint said, deftly unhooking her bra and sliding down over her arms. Kate's breath caught at how his eyes moved over her, her nipples tightening as he licked his lips.

"Don't fucking tease," she ground out as his hands moved back over her shoulders, the calluses on the tips of his fingers catching at her skin as he traced the curve of her breasts.

"Not a tease," Clint promised, except that he was, still with those light, barely-there touches that went everywhere except where she needed them. Kate got a little of her own back, though, rocking down onto him, twisting and grinding into his cock, and he finally made good on his words, dragging his thumbs over her nipples, his nails scraping hot, sharp lines that shocked a hoarse cry from her.

"C'mere," Clint said, urging her forward, catching her whimpers in another one of those long, slow kisses. Kate pressed close, digging her hands into his biceps, his shoulders, losing herself in the glide of his skin against hers. His hands slid down her back again, not stopping this time until he was cupping and kneading her ass, her thighs, and then working the tips of his fingers up under the elastic of her thong.

"You--" Kate tore her mouth away from his and pushed her cunt down on his hand. "You need to fuck me now," she said, biting down hard on his collarbone as he pushed three fingers up into her. She was slick and wet and dying for it, but the sudden penetration still shuddered through her. "For real."

"Condoms in the drawer," Clint told her. Kate would have slapped the smug smile off his face except for how fucking good he was with his hands, every stroke curving just right inside her and his thumb riding hard against her clit. She managed to get the drawer open on the second try, yanking it out and dumping the whole thing on the bed.

"Okay," Kate gasped, snatching up a foil packet and clearing the rest of the junk with a sweep of her arm. "Okay, seriously, stop, stop--" Clint froze, his eyes searching her face, and she shook her head at the worry she saw there. "No, I'm fine, it's fine, I just--I'm too close." She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead, swallowing hard before whispering, "I want to come on your cock."

Clint went still beneath her for a long few seconds, and then groaned, "Aw, fuck, Katie, you can't just say shit like that." Things got crazy for the next little bit as they wrestled Clint out of his jeans and boxers and Kate shimmied out of her thong. She accidentally elbowed him in one of the worst bruises and spent a little extra time kissing it better, but they caught a break and got the condom open and on him without any fumbling or tears.

"'s good, Kate," Clint slurred as she slid down onto him. "Real good."

"Yeah," Kate sighed. He was pushing into her slowly, small shifts of his hips that moved his cock in all the right ways, each one building on the one before it, easy and smooth. She laughed a little, breathless and almost giddy. "You know, I kinda figured we'd be fucking against a wall the first time."

"Sorry," Clint said, dragging his mouth down her neck. "As messed up as my ribs are, I'd have dropped you for sure." He eased her back and dropped his head lower. "I'll make it up to you," he said, closing his mouth around her nipple, his tongue swirling around it. Kate dropped her head back and groaned. "Promise." He turned his head and caught her other nipple, sucking at it with the same rhythm that he was fucking her. Kate wanted to say something sharp, something smart, but he switched to biting, not quite gently, and it was all she could do not to wail.

Clint kept that same easy rhythm even when every breath started to sound more like a sob, and Kate moved with him, like it was a dare, who could last longer, who could make the other more crazy. She felt the orgasm building in her thighs and belly, twisting tighter into her cunt, and he drew her closer like he felt it, too. Kate wrapped her legs around him, and her arms, and choked out, "Yeah, c'mon, c'mon, come with me," as Clint slid his hand between them and rubbed at her clit, too rough, too hard, fucking perfect. She clawed at him and ground down once, twice, her thighs aching from the strain, everything that had been spiraling down tight inside her finally tore loose, racing through her as he shuddered and gasped beneath her.

It took longer than Kate would have liked for her body to listen to her brain and move properly, but when she finally lifted her head out of the crook of Clint's shoulder, he just reached up and pushed her hair back from her face. Kate got her arms from where they'd wrapped themselves around his shoulders and cupped his face, tracing her thumbs over his cheekbones, skipping carefully over the butterflied cut.

"If I say something like, 'fuck, that was awesome,' are you going to get all smug and assholish at me?"

"I won't if you won't," Clint mumbled. He arched up into her touch, like it'd been too long since he'd gotten anything like it. Kate decided she needed to think about that more, but later, because right now she just needed to be doing it.

"Deal," Kate said. "Also, fuck, that was awesome."

"Ditto," Clint said. His mouth quirked up into a half-smile that Kate could see becoming really addicted to. She probably should have been a little more worried about that than she was, but whatever.

Lucky was a good dog, but he was still whuffling and whining a little before dawn. Kate woke up as Clint gathered himself to go take him out, so she got the front row view to how everything had seized up overnight. She also got the front row view of just how stubborn the idiot was when he brushed off her offer to help and finally made it out of bed on the third try.

"I got him," Clint said. "Go back to sleep."

"Nice ass," Kate mumbled as he staggered around, dragging jeans on and muttering about shoes. She didn't think he actually heard her, but then he smacked her ass on his way out of the room.

"Ditto." He sounded half-asleep; Kate listened to make sure he didn't kill himself going down the steps, but all she heard was Lucky's happy dance and the door slamming, so she guessed he managed to survive. The next thing she knew, the light coming through the windows was the sun, and there was definitely coffee happening.

She'd half wondered if the morning after was going to be awkward, but by the time Lucky came and said good morning and she made grabby hands at the coffee pot (which, oh god, a Mr. Coffee, she had to do something about that, clearly) and Clint shoved a paper bag full of sweet, fried heaven at her, things were pretty okay.

"You have plans this morning?" Clint leaned against the counter like she couldn't tell how he was still babying his ribs. Kate shrugged. "'Kay," he said. "Come hit the gym at the Tower with me."

"I was kind of hoping for more of a re-do of last night."

"I need to hit up PT for these ribs and Nat can get you started on some hand-to-hand." The way he said it, it wasn't really a suggestion, but when Kate frowned at him, he didn't back down. "You want to keep going out, you need to work on your close-in stuff."

"Yeah, well, why can't you do it?"

"'Cause I've got 5 inches and 60 pounds on you. The way I fight isn't gonna help you," he said. "Nat can take me, most days. She's who you need."

"Does she know about me? About going out?"

"I didn't say anything, but that doesn't mean she doesn't know." Clint shrugged. "I don't ask anymore. It just is."

"Okay," Kate sighed. "It's probably a good idea."

"Yeah, I get those every now and then."

"Good to know." Kate went and collected her clothes and shoes. "I make no promises about what I might say if anybody gets up in my face. And by anybody, I mean Captain America. I owe him another chat about creepy behavior anyway."

"Right, because of course the girl I'm tryin' to start something with has a thing about the guy I work for," Clint muttered. "Because anything else would be too simple."

"Hey, if you think you're like this chill, no-work guy, you're seriously dreaming." Kate looked him up and down. "I mean, yeah, it starts off all great with the arms and abs and that fucking smirk, but then there's the superhero thing and the secrets and the..." Kate had to stop and swallow hard. "And the bootprints for bruises. Way more than what's happening at first look."

Clint stood there, not saying anything, and Kate could tell he was waiting for her to decide he was too much trouble, waiting for her to walk. As if, Kate thought. She knew how to stick with the stuff that was worth it, no matter how much of a hassle, like her shop and everything it'd taken to make that work. She looked at him, barefoot and rumpled, holding onto the mostly empty coffee pot like it was his good luck charm, and laughed, delighted by the parallel she should have figured out a long time ago.

"Right," Clint bit out, all his walls back up in a flash.

"No, no--" Kate said, giving her utter lack of timing a mental smack. "It's… you remember the first time we talked and I told you that you sure as hell weren't an espresso con panna?" He nodded once, wary, but he let her put one hand on his arm. "Yeah, so, I just figured it out--you're a pour-over. All simple on the surface, because, hey, it's just coffee and water, right? But then you need the right roast, and the right grind, and hell, you might as well triple-filter the water while you're at it. And the water can't be boiling, cause that'll make it bitter, but you can't let it get too cool either, cause then it gets funky. You have to start off really slow and wet the grounds, all of them, so they bloom, but you can't get too wet or you wash away the flavor. And once you do all that, then you can start the pour, but you have to go slow and controlled, like three or four minutes for a single cup, doing it all by hand." She shrugged, because yeah, nothing like beating a metaphor to death. "So, just coffee and water, but way more complicated, too. There's a million ways to screw it up, but... You get it right?" He let her take his hand. "It's the best there is, fucking amazing."

Clint looked at her for a long, serious couple of seconds, like he was trying to decide if she was crazy or just a bitch, but then he slid his hand behind her head, strong, capable fingers combing through her hair, and leaned down to kiss her, so she guessed she'd gotten right after all.

"I'll make you one," Kate murmured against his mouth. "Tonight. Here, if you want."

"Deal," Clint answered, dropping another kiss on her mouth, and then one more after that. Kate hitched herself up so she was sitting on the counter and dragged him close so she could wrap her legs around his waist. She thought they might just be settling in and to hell with physical therapy and hand-to-hand training, but then Lucky came nosing over to see what was going on and Clint took a shuddery, deep breath and let her go.

"No more distractions, girlie," he said, in what wanted to be a growl but sounded a whole lot more like a whimper.

Kate blinked up at him and said, "Oh, so I shouldn't tell you my thoughts on how fucking on this counter would be almost as good as against the wall and way better for your ribs...?"

Clint made this strangled kind of a noise, and Kate laughed and let him hustle her out of the apartment, because she was pretty sure this was worth all the complications in the world.