Title: on the mend
Fandom: Hawkeye Comics
Characters/Ships: Clint Barton/Kate Bishop
Rating: Mature
Length: 692 words
Written For: trope_bingo round #10, prompt: hurt/comfort
Summary: Clint was no stranger to getting hurt on the job. Kate insisted on taking care of him, despite his objects and this time he doesn’t try so hard to push her away.
CW: injury, injury recovery, broken bones, hurt/comfort
Originally Posted: January 19, 2018
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Clint watched from the relative safety of the couch as Kate dragged his mattress and bedding down the stairs and dumped it all into the middle of the living room.
“I can just sleep on the couch, it’s not my first time with a broken leg -- or second,” Clint said. He really didn’t need her to do all this. He was fine on his own. He really was.
“This’ll be better, we can set everything up here in front of the TV.” Kate dumped the pillows and blankets on top of the mattress in a big messy heap.
“We?” She wasn’t planning on sharing the bed with him, was she?
“Well, I’m not sleeping on your crappy couch, that’s for sure.”
Yup, she totally was. “You don’t really need to stay here...”
“Shush” Kate was a very determined girl -- woman -- Hawkeye.
“It’s just a small break, I’ve had worse.” Clint had broken so many bones over the years he had lost count. Injuries were part of the job. Running around with powered people when you didn’t have any powers yourself, wasn’t exactly safe.
Kate had picked him up at the hospital. Somehow she had become his emergency contact. He tried to tell her he didn’t need help, he was freaking Avenger, he could take care of himself. She wouldn’t listen, and maybe he didn’t actually try that hard to push her away for once.
She moved into his apartment, and his bed - in a completely platonic way of course. Kate made sure he didn’t wash down his pain meds with beer or take them on an empty stomach. She didn’t cook exactly, but she made a mean peanut butter and fluff sandwich and was always happy to order take-out. He liked having her around. It felt weird when she did stuff for him, but he liked her company. It was comfortable. Clint didn’t really feel he deserved it, but he accepted it. Not that she gave him much choice. She was very stubborn. But she didn’t complain when he wanted to watch back to back episodes of Dog Cops and she remembered to turn the subtitles on for him, so he wouldn’t miss anything.
One afternoon when he was being extra cranky and they were fighting over control of the remote; she hit him in the face with a pillow. He was about to complain when suddenly she straddled him. Dressed only in his boxers and an old t-shirt it felt a bit on the awkward side.
“Do you really want me to leave Clint? If I’m overstepping, tell me -- if you’re just being your usual assy self -- trying to push me away because you think you don’t deserve nice things, then shut up.”
Had he asked her to leave? He couldn’t even remember now. He closed his mouth. He really didn’t want her to leave his apartment or his bed. It was feeling really good with her on top of him like that. Maybe a little too good. They didn’t do this. They couldn’t. Sex confused things, and he was shit at relationships, and for a million other reasons that no longer seemed important.
“Are we good?” she asked.
Oh yeah, they were good. He nodded, not trusting himself with words. Was she really trying to start something or just being her usual playful self?
Kate flashed him a wicked smile and leaned over and to kiss him. Her hair felt like silk against his skin. Okay, scratch that, she was definitely not just being playful. It took him a couple seconds to get with the program but he kissed her back. He kept his hands down on the bed, afraid to touch her in the ways that he wanted to. He had so many excuses in his head for why he shouldn’t do this, but at that moment only one of them came to mind. “I thought I was supposed to be resting.”
“Shush.” She pulled off her shirt and tossed it into the corner and Clint decided that Kate knew what was best for him and that he should always go along with all her plans without an argument.
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