#clinty-cat

[officialfennekin]

I'm completely okay with you posting those. I'm glad that they helped. I know how stressful it is to be you right now, so I'm happy to help. 😌

thank you!!! i can't say it enough. i truly appreciate your help. it's really comforting just to have your support

[woaahhhclint]

I just found out that I have another sister.. Her name is Audra and she's 5.

[originalclintbarton]

oh and also for headcanons clint barton and sleeping

fuck so it deleted the huge response i had to this…

I like to think that Clint Barton’s sleeping habits change depending of the circumstances he is in. to be honest, I think that even in the most safe, stable and secure environment, he never really gets more than a few hours rest because he can never really wind down.

Clint doesn’t sleep on missions. Doesn’t matter where, or what his role is, whether it is undercover or not. He’s trained his body to deactivate into a sort of trance that seems to provide sufficient rest for his body to cope. Sometimes, he can’t even afford that, if he is in a snipers nest, constantly having to be alert at every moment. He barely has time to blink, let alone get some shut eye, because he knows if he fucks up, he’s a gonner for sure.

Similarly, at SHIELD, it’s not much better. He knows he’s supposed to trust these people, but he’s seen exactly what this organisation will do, and he won’t rest in the belly of the beast. It took him a long time to trust Coulson because of this, to differentiate between Agent Coulson, his boss – and Phil, his friend.

With Natasha, it’s a little different. They were all each other had for a long while. They sleep in shifts, curled up close to one another for warmth and safety; one of the pair always combat ready. Clint remembers the numerous days when Natasha just wouldn’t wake up, whether from injury or exhaustion, when he didn’t think he’d ever close his eyes again. He doesn’t like to think too hard about those times.

The times he stays with the Avengers are eventful to say the least. He doesn’t feel comfortable with how chummy they all are. His anonymity is his greatest asset, second to his eyes I suppose. He sleeps if he has to, curled up somewhere high (yes I know cliché but I like it…) where nobody normal can reach him, and nobody powered would want to. He likes to shoot nerf arrows at anyone who tries to disturb him, with the exceptions of Natasha and Phil, to an extent. He shoots Logan on sight, just to get a rise. We don’t talk about the early days, when the team still didn’t know what to do with their wayward sniper, and Steve got the fright of his life climbing up to Clint’s perch to find him staring sightlessly at the supersoldier, looking to all the world dead.

At home, in the small musty apartment that he calls his, he sleeps easier. He knows it’s not safer than the Avengers HQ, or SHIELD, but it’s his, and his alone, and there is no-one here to hurt him anymore. He feels secure in the fact that nobody can take this from him. When he is alone, no Katie or Avengers looking out for him, he likes to take all the blankets and pillows in the apartment and curl up behind the air-con vents on the root and watch the stars. It feels a little like his childhood then, with the circus, just little old Clint Barton and the stars. They never tried to hurt him anyway. It’s there that he manages to get the most sleep he ever does, bundled up in his favourite blankets with messy hair and sleepy eyes.

Sometimes, if Katie is lucky, she’ll rangle him into be late in the night, exhausted and barely lucid. She tucks him in, blankets warm and soft around his beaten body, and kiss him on the forehead goodnight. He tries not to ask when he wakes up in the soft embrace of his comforter, the pounding in his head gone, feeling more rested then he has in years.