It is cold in Russia; moreso when one is outside and not wearing gloves because it will 'mess up my aim, god, I'll be fine without gloves, I'm fucking Hawkeye'.
Clint considers taking back his angry, righteous protests about aim and telling his younger self not to be an idiot so he takes his handler's advice. Knowing for next time won't help him as he's sitting on this dumb building freezing his ass off because he hasn't heard the word 'go' yet. He misses being freelance at times like this, but reminds himself that being freelance doesn't come with free health care, and free health care would help his potentially frostbitten fingers more than thousands of dollars in cash. Or maybe it'd be about even. He's not sure.
He hums to himself quietly, the sound burning in his throat just like the freezing air he inhales, and he leans forwards on the roof, eyes narrowing. His target, with her pretty black hair, hasn't moved. He wonders what he's supposed to be waiting for, and then watches her fiddle with a bracelet on her wrist, the beads oddly metallic-
"That bracelet what we're after?" he mumbles, lips barely moving, and hears a quiet 'affirmative' and then,
"If she has it, take the shot."
"My pleasure, it's cold as balls out here," he says, and shifts backwards, reaching for his bow in the same movement. It's his calling-card, by now, and no matter how many times they try and convert him to guns he'll always be more comfortable with a bow in his hands. His motions are route memory by now, notching the arrow and drawing back, judging the wind and the force he'll need to pin her to her chair, on the slim chance that she'll still be moving and fighting once his arrow flies through her.
Neck, he thinks, because she's slouched a bit now and most of her chest is covered by the tall table and her deceptively broad shoulders.
Hawkeye lets the arrow fly and then-
She leans back. A fraction of a second of a movement and the arrow merely nicks her throat, scarring the delicate tissue and embedding itself in the wall behind her.
She jolts, then turns to where it came from and for a second he's sure she's looking right at him, and his heart pounds in his throat like it hasn't before his circus days, when a missed shot would mean his brother got a puncture wound straight through the hand.
She's gone in another second, bolting through the cafe's customers and then somehow vanishing straight into the crowd outside, disappearing as if she'd turned invisible. (At the time, he thinks that such a thing is impossible, but after meeting a mythological god he'd changed his definition of impossible').
Three years later, with red hair and a S.H.I.E.L.D jacket fastened over her throat, she holds out her hand and instead of shaking it he drops a silver arrow into it.
"Only one who's ever missed my arrow." He says, and she grins, vicious.
"Making me carry it around so they have to bury me with it?" she asks.
"Something like that."
(She never takes it off.)
AN: Clint Barton, aka, the Dork that this arrow Friendship necklaces are Cool
Please review! I'm always a sucker for reviews ;u; 3
Feel free to hit me up at .com for allllll the rants vuv
Also while writing this I had a discussion w/ a friend about the fact that Clint totally tries to get his insignia o e.
He stencil-painted an arrow on Tony's iron butt, and on Cap's shield and gave cap pjs with purple hawks on them (they're custom), and gave Bruce hulk-proof hawkeye boxers, and painted Sam's wings in purple and green. Phil has a pretty lapel pin but it's So Big and so glaringly obviously not Phil's style/Hawkeye themed.
He was gonna stick a bunch of hawkeye stickers on Mjölnir but Thor caught him and clapped him on the back and went, "Excellent! I did not posses those, thank you friend Clint! I shall add it to the others!"
"Others?" goes Clint, in absolute confusion.
Thor shows him this drawe with avenger's merch. Thor is so proud. Clint is speechless.