in for a penny

Fandom: Hawkeye (comics)
Characters/Pairings: Clint Barton/Kate Bishop, Lucky
Rating: Teen
Length: 1,796 words
Notes: written for juletide 2023
Summary: After Kate starts crashing on his couch, Clint tries to figure out if he and Kate are dating each other or not.
Posted On: July 20, 2023

→→→→→→→→→→→→→


On the couch, Clint put his feet up on the coffee table and flipped through the channels on the t.v.. He was so damn exhausted. Not that he'd done anything all day but the heat and humidity had drained all the drive out of him. There was nothing to watch and concentration didn't seem to be a thing he had at the moment. His mind kept drifting.

How long had Kate been staying with him? She'd asked to crash on his couch sometime back in the spring. What was it now? August? He glanced down at his phone. Yup, smack-dab in the middle of August. So, it had been a bit. He scratched his head. When did crashing on someone's couch turn into living with them? When they moved their stuff in? When they started sleeping in your bed? How about when you started sleeping with them? With her. Shit. Was Kate living with him? He glanced over at the kitchen counter where Kate hunched over her laptop. "Katie, How long have you been staying here?"

She looked up and glared at him. "How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me Katie, until you actually stop calling me Katie?"

Clint opened his mouth, probably about to say something that was gonna get him into trouble when Lucky whined. Saved by the dog. He pawed at the door. Dammit. Not again. "Dog needs to go out."

Kate's eyes were back on her laptop and she didn't bother looking up. "You know where the leash is."

Really? "I brought him out the last three times."

Kate picked up her phone. "So, we're keeping score now?" She asked without looking up.

There was probably no good answer to that. What was a good excuse? He was tired? His back hurt? That the humidity was doing something weird to his joints? All true, but it made him feel old saying any of it out loud. He was watching tv. Oh, that was a good excuse, right? "I'm in the middle of an episode."

Kate glanced up. "An episode of what?"

Crap, he hadn't been paying attention. He'd settled on what looked like some random procedural. "Law & Disorder?"

"Is that even a show?" Kate put her phone down. "Look, we've got a lull in the rain and at least three weather apps claim it's going to last for at least another hour. How about we both go?"

"There's no chance of me getting out of this, is there?"

Kate shook her head and closed her laptop. "We can get pizza while we're out."

Clint sighed, turned off the t.v., and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. "Fine. I guess we're all going out."

They paused outside of his building so Kate could call the pizza place and put their order in ahead of time. A soft wind cooled the air. Huh. This was nice. Smiling up at the sky he saw dark clouds on the horizon. Still, they seemed pretty far off in the distance. Hopefully, Kate's weather apps were right and the rain would hold off until they got back.

He watched Kate put away her phone and look up at the sky. "Maybe we should have brought an umbrella?" She asked.

He started walking. "It's just a few clouds," he told her. It took longer to get to the pizza place than usual, as Lucky insisted on investigating every scraggly weed popping up through the cracks in the sidewalk along the way. Despite all that, when they got to their destination they still had to wait several minutes for their food. For better or worse it gave him time to think.

It'd occurred to him to wonder if maybe they were dating - he and Kate. When Kate first started crashing with him, she slept on the couch. He offered her the bed but she'd said no, she was fine with the couch. Then all of a sudden she wasn't fine with the couch anymore. It was too hard and it hurt her back. He'd offered to take the couch again and she told him it was fine, they could share his bed. So, they did. And it was fine, until a week or so later when they'd been chasing several costumed bad guys that'd tried to rob his favorite sub shop, and things had gone south. Everything had been all right in the end but the excitement of not having died horrible deaths had led to them tearing off each other's clothes and having very energetic sex on his surprisingly robust kitchen counter. That had been better than fine. It had been futzing amazing but he chocked it up to getting caught up in the moment and figured it would be a one-time thing. Which was for the best because sex complicated things.

The second time had been after a disagreement - not a fight - a disagreement, over brands of peanut butter. They'd started in the kitchen, moved to the bed, and somehow ended up on the floor.

The third time happened a couple nights earlier, after they'd watched a movie while curled up on the couch together. Come to think of it, they'd never actually finished watching that movie. He ran a hand through his hair. It really kinda seemed like they were dating or something. "Hey, Kate." He'd almost called her Katie again but stopped himself in time. It probably didn't seem too awkward.

She turned to him. "Yeah?"

God, she was beautiful. "Are we dat--" Lucky barked. Clint opened his mouth to try again and Lucky barked again. Louder this time.

Kate bent down and scratched the dog's ears. "What's the matter boy, you ready to go home?"

Lucky barked again. Good dog. He'd been about to say something stupid. He shouldn't have to ask if they were dating. He should know if they were dating. Right? A of couple minutes later the order was ready and they headed back home. Three steps outside of the pizza joint, the rain started to fall. Crap. He quickly took his hearing aids out with the intention of shoving them into his pocket in hopes they wouldn't get wet.

"Here." Kate held out a small box. "put your hearing aids in there and I'll stick them in my bag."

She was amazing. "Thanks"

"Shouldn't those be waterproof or something?" Kate signed.

"Water resistant, and you know how that goes. Maybe they get soaking wet and everything's fine, or maybe a few drops of water hit them and they never work again." He handed her back the box. "I have a pair Tony made me that he claims I could go diving in if I wanted, but they're not as comfortable and I mostly save them for when I'm doing Avengers stuff."

"Makes sense." Kate tucked the box into her bag and they got going again.

Lightning flashed in the sky, quickly followed by a crack of thunder loud enough for him to feel it. They were about twenty feet from his building when the light rain that had been falling became a deluge. Awesome.

Kate unlocked the door and Lucky ran past them both into the apartment and started shaking water everywhere. Clint peeled off his wet shirt and tossed it in the hamper. Grabbing a towel from the laundry basket, he dried his hair, so his hearing aids wouldn't get wet when he put them back in. He turned around to see Kate holding out his hearing aid box. The urge to reach out and pull her in for a kiss was barely resistible. Still, he managed to resist, took the box, and signed, "Thanks."

He got the dog dried off, put one pizza away in the fridge, and the other on the coffee table. Kate came down the stairs wearing dry clothes, her wet hair pulled back in a ponytail. "You need to take off your pants," she told him.

What? He blinked.

"You can't sit on the couch like that, your jeans are soaked all the way through." She stood close enough to touch. "Did you want me to help you?" She undid the button on his pants and slid his zipper down.

"Um..."

"I'm pretty sure we've both seen each other without our clothes on." She tugged his jeans down and his brain short-circuited. She pushed him down on the couch and pulled his jeans off the rest of the way, leaving him in his boxers.

"About that," Clint started.

Kate grabbed a slice of pizza and joined him on the couch. "About whether or not we're dating?"

"Yeah." Apparently, she had been paying attention to what he'd been trying to ask her all day.

"Do you want to be dating?" She got up and went to the fridge. "Did you want something to drink, we have soda, beer, and a jug of milk only three days passed the sell-by date."

"It's still good," he said defensively. He wasn't about to toss perfectly good food just because of the date someone stamped onto it.

"If you say so." Kate looked over her shoulder at him.

"Beer, thanks." She handed him the beer and sat back down next to him before cracking open a grape soda for herself. Had he bought that or had she? Was she stocking his fridge now too? Wait she'd asked him a question. Did he want to be dating Kate? He surprised himself by answering, "I'm not opposed to it but -"

"Sex complicates things?" Kate finished his question for him.

"Exactly," he agreed.

"Well, we already had sex - multiple times even."

"I'm aware."

"In for a penny, in for a pound?"

Clint grinned. "I think that's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."

"Ha-Ha. Seriously, Clint. Are you cool with the dating thing? We don't have to stick a label on it if it makes you uncomfortable." Kate fiddled with the hem of her shirt. "We can always do the friends with bennies thing instead."

He thought about it a moment. Friends with benefits would mean less of a commitment. He could probably date other people if he wanted. Of course, that meant that she could too. "I'm good with the dating thing." Surprisingly he'd meant it. It was true that sex complicated things and he tended to mess everything up when it came to relationships, but that ship had already sailed. Might as well see where this thing went.

"Exclusive or casual?" Kate's voice was deceptively light but he saw the tension in her body. His answer was important.

Clint took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and said the first thing that came to him. "Exclusive." Kate beamed at him and he knew he'd said the right thing.


→Return to Marvel Index!
→Return Home!