“On your six Barton, duck please” Bobbi ordered as she lifted the automatic rifle and let out three shots befgore abandoning the gun and moving over to help haul Clint up.
“Got all you fingers?” she asked, moving back to back with him.
The princess, as smart as she is (and as she is forced to hide), feel particularly dumb.
An escape attempt during the winter... just to escape a bad engagement? The thick fur dress she had worn was nearly in taters, and whipped in the wind around her, leaving her closer, and closer to death. With her vision fading and her hear going to a dull roar with every step, her body heavy from lack of food from the few days before the blizzard came.
She had ridden on horseback to the mountains, thanking the Huntswoman for the way here. She paid and Kate was told of the mountain pass to lead to the next town within her realm.
That had been three days earlier, and it was supposed to have taken two.
She could feel her lung begin to heave for air, the cold taking a heavy toll on them, and eventually she slowly began to lose the will to keep going.... to stay alive.
“Well if I am to die here, at least it was on my own accord, and as my own woman” she breathes out as she knelt down to let herself take her long nap.
Kate grins at the little box, trying not to smile to hard, the stitches on her lips tugging painfully before she slowly moves over, showered and sore to crawl onto the couch beside Clint, laying herself down and settling herself in his lap, her ring comfortably on and she holds out the other to him with a smirk.
“This is really sweet” she tells him, shifting off of him some so she doesn’t hurt his ribs.
It’s the first day of Hanukkah, it doesn’t matter really, but the building does have a few Jewish residence, and everyone gets together for every holiday anyway.
The holiday has nothing to do with anything.
At this point, Kate Bishop is a couch surfer in Clint’s apartment. Except for she’s in his bed. And she’s having sex with him. She doesn’t pay rent, but she buys the groceries, she’s not allowed to cook anymore because of the tuna accident of November tenth. So Clint cooks most nights when they don’t order out. (No I’m buying food and we’re cooking we can’t live on pizza alone. But Katie-- no.) They don’t talk about what their relationship is now, because they’re both afraid that if there’s a label... then it’ll go to hell.
She wakes up earlier before him every morning. while he habitually sleeps in until whenever she gets bored since Lucky’ll take her spot when she gets up to shower in the morning to leave him with cold water depending on when he decides to shower himself.
She’s up like every other morning, Lucky at her feet and just a sliver of morning light sliding over and across the room, hitting neither of their eyes. She wakes up, shifting from having her arm secured around Clint to find he’s rolled over onto his stomach when he was sleeping.
It’s the first time, she thinks, she’s properly seen his back. With him relaxed, no rush to put his shirt on and not in the throes of sex. Yeah, they’ve showered together after missions, before and after their new.... what ever it is, but she’s never been in a position to see it all properly.
It’s matted with knotted, scarred flesh, she can see his muscles move as he breathes still, the curve of his neck follows to his shoulders and some are more faded than others. Some newer from mission with her and the Avengers. She’s sitting, up, pulling the comforter that she’s stolen in the night around herself and her bare skin pricks in goosebumps as she shifts and the cold air moves around she lets her hands warm up against her own sides before she pokes them out of the blanket and gentle fingers begin to trace over the worst of them, and then to others, following from shoulder to shoulder.
She can tell some of the older (and the worst) of them are made with a belt buckle, and she gently traces them as she hears him shift awake, her fingers find the notches of his spine and gently trace from the base of his neck, slowly down. Kate lets him roll back onto his side and let him after she presses a firm kiss between his shoulder blades, her fingers finding his ribs and letting her fingers glide up and down between them.
“You woke me up--” it’s groused and said with a slight smile from Clint, eyes closed still, “No I didn’t” Kate whispers backs, stroking her fingers through his hair how he likes, “No you didn’t” he agrees, tugging her to lay back down. She wraps her arms around him, thumbing over the scars gently still.
“Clint--” she begins in a quiet voice, getting a half hummed what in turn, and she get stuck before she just leans up to kiss him tenderly. “It can wait until you’re awake.