"In The Seconds Of Running"

"Milk, milk, milk, where is the fucking milk?" Clint is humming his self composed song under his breath while he is strolling through the empty lane of an equally empty supermarket. There is fucking no one there, It's as if the freaking Zombie apocalypse came and went and left Clint as lone surviving soul on the face of this planet.

It is that he was greeted by a bored looking girl behind the counter when he had entered this place, otherwise he would have believed his own stupid theory. Not that he cared, he was here just to do some shopping, just to get some beer. You can never have enough of that, and the milk would eventually come along his path.

Clint takes another look in his shopping basket and a smirk forms on his tired face. It is filled with energy-drink and Poptards, lollypops and beer. basically all he really needs to survive an apocalypse. Zombie or not.

If only he could just finish this shopping and get home, drink beer and watch a game. He would have had nothing to worry about. The only problem is that he can't go home, not since those bastards of cops invaded his hide-out.

That's why he is here, just after eleven at night, buying new food supplies. With outside, waiting in a car that isn't really theirs, his mates Bruce and Tony, or, as the underworld liked to call them, "the hulk" (caused by his anger management issues and the way he can freak out if you do something he doesn't categorize as right, really nice guy though, smart) and "the iron man" (they call him that, because he likes to make his robots do all the hard work for him, including an occasional fight, but he is just genuinely a smart guy, bit weird, but smart nonetheless). Clint is the one out shopping, because he is the one who thought it necessary to even do so.

The closer Clint gets to the exit of the supermarket, the more he is wishing that there actually had been a Zombie apocalypse. That would have meant that the girl at the counter had been dead, and that would result in him not having to take this risk.

He stands still in the lane closest to the right side of the store. Taking in as much as he can from a good distance from the counter. While walking through the shop he noticed every little thing about the place. And he is trying to find out more to fill the last holes in his plan.

The only available exit is the one he came in through, the main entrance. There technically are two other exits but one of them is a fire escape and the other is in the back. Which happens to be the only place, besides where counter girl is seated, where there are people. Whom Clint assumes to be the manager and a shop assistant are busy stocking up on coffee in the back, and he doesn't want to risk them seeing him. The car outside is parked in one of the many blind-spots of the place, and he made sure before entering, that his face nor hands were visible on the security camera's. He had opened the door with his elbow, had carried his basket with the end of his sleeve and had been wearing his beanie since he got out of the car.

He is invisible to both the cameras and the counter girl at this moment and thus had time to look around for a bit, to think about what the actual hell he was doing anyway. His first plan had been simply to distract the girl and walk out with his stuff. But the girl hadn't even glanced up when he had dropped a bottle of wine a few minutes earlier, so that plan was a no-go.

The girl hadn't seen his face and had been listening music the whole time he had been here. So there was a good chance that she didn't even know he was here, which made it even more clear to Clint that he didn't have to harm her to get this over with.

A TL light behind Clint protests against its job, and catches Clint's attention. He turns around to find the cooling section of the shop, partly filled with bottles of milk. He grins to himself, the world really was on his side tonight. Well, apart from the cops, but really, that had just been a bump in the road, right? He really hopes that is true, because if it wasn't, he could get a lot more attention on his way out then he needs.

His new plan is a lot riskier than his first, and he isn't exactly sure about it, but it's the best he has, and he has all the means to do it.

Clint is known in the underworld, as "Hawkeye". Some say it is because of his ability to completely see, correctly interpret, and accurately predict a situation from an enormous distance. Others say it's because of his impressive marksman skills and his silent manner of attacking. Whatever the real reason might be, Clint liked his nickname, and had adopted it as his personal trademark as soon as he could. At the scene of big crimes, he'd sometimes leave behind a feather, just as a way to show off.

This wasn't a big crime, though, and leaving a feather behind would not only be stupid but also an absolute waist of the feather. Because those feathers were beautiful, and by the way, he doesn't have any of them on him now anyways, because they are safe at… shit, FUCK, he left the stupid feathers at the stupid by cops invaded house. Well, fuck. That literally ruined any chances they had left of ever returning there.

The last pieces of his escape puzzle are falling into place, and he slowly starts to see the bigger picture. This is how it will go down.

He was going to walk towards the counter where the girl was seated, making sure she still wouldn't see his face. He'd turn his back towards her and would notify the girl of the still body lying at the end of the lane she had vision on, she'd call her superiors from the back and would get up to check on the victim. She and her manager would arrive at the body at around the same time. In that short amount of space, Clint would have more than enough time to find and prepare the button that disabled the alarm at the door. Making sure that it wouldn't trigger when he was walking out with not only his shopping basket, but the money from the register, four packs of cigarettes and all the chewing-gum he could get his hands on. Easypeasy.

Everything goes according to plan. He also finds out that the girl is named Emma. She takes a little longer to jump into action then he had expected her to, but she finally does what she is supposed to do and doesn't pay any more attention to him than the soft "sorry" she stammers when she walks past him. The manager takes just as long so that leaves him with a little more time then he had expected, giving him the space to actually choose his chewing-gum before taking it, and enabling him to check his button heck twice.

Leaving this mini-robbery more successful than any of them had expected, he walks out of the automatic doors. As soon as he has eye contact with Tony, he salutes his mate in the car, and Tony starts the engine. He is greeted by a broad smile when he opens the back to put the groceries in. "Did you get it, Clint?" Clint smiles, "Of course I did, sweetie pie, didn't you believe I would?" Bruce leans over towards him and aggressively grabs the chewing-gum from the pockets of his hoodie. "Don't push it, Clinton." He says, clearly trying to sound as if he's a threat, but when Clint looks him into the eyes and claws at him teasingly, breathing out a half-tried "Grawrrrr", he just rolls his eyes and gets back to the front of the car.

Tony is behind the wheel, and as soon as Clint closes the door, he drives away. Now that Bruce also has his attention on the road, he too can start asking questions. "I take it you got the milk and my cigarettes?" "Right here with me, Tony, and I even got you some energy drink, to make up for your lack of caffeine now that we don't have access to our lovely coffee machine." He knew he had done Tony a favour by taking those, so he didn't mind when Tony ignored it and went on with his interrogation. "So, how'd it go?"

"Flawless, as usual. That's what you get when you put the best of the best in the field," he grinned and found eye contact, first with Bruce and only seconds later with Tony, through the reverse mirror. "me!". He wasn't gonna tell them that it had been a bit trickier than expected. You see, he had known these guys for over half of his miserable life, and he trusted them with it. But he also knew that they wouldn't hesitate to lose him, if they ever got even the faintest of indications that he was turning against them. And he knew that they would at least keep a closer eye on him if they found out he had almost screwed up.

"Shut up, Barton." It sounds harsh, but Clint can see Tony's shoulders move a little under his silent laughter. "what else did you get? Nothing too expensive I hope, we wouldn't want them finding out that we actually stole something." Tony emphasizes the word stole, to make it sound like a joke, but again, Clint knows better than that. "Um, let's see, I got.., some more beer, your energy, the milk, Bruce's gum, the cigarettes and lots and lots of lollypops."

Clint knew that the only reason Tony didn't face palm himself was that he was supposed to be steering and watching the road. And he grinned when Bruce turned around with a sigh to face Clint and ask him a question. "So? How did you do it this time?" Clint was a bit put off by that question but answered nonetheless. "Long story short? I faked a dead body with a bottle of wine, dog food bags, a clown costume and a giant box of clay." A cheeky grin spread across both Bruce's and Clint's face. "Nice job, Clint." Bruce seems genuinely proud of him, which makes sense provided that he had made up that tactic a few years ago.

The car was driving at full speed down an almost empty highway, but he didn't mind the fact that they were breaking more rules than strictly necessary. They had never have to flee from a home before, not without someone making a stupid mistake, something that person would regret doing not long after. And for as far as he knew, no one made a mistake large enough to get the cops to find them. There was something off about the whole situation, and he didn't like it. Yeah, they were good enough criminals to get through it, and find a new spot. But the fact that someone had found it useful, or, whatever, to blab to the cops? That just wasn't good, not at all. He is distracted when a bubble is popped in the front of the car. How appropriate.

His attention is directed at Bruce when he slowly starts to chew again. "Hey, Clint?" Bruce seems to consider asking the question before he does, "the energy-drink, I get, but why the lollypops?" Clint answers his question with an antisocial toothy smile "'Cause I like," he intercalates a short wanna-be-dramatic pause, then continues with a smile that is, if possible, broader then his former teeth-shower, "to suck."

Tony breaks into a shameless giggle and soon Bruce is laughing too. As if they aren't fugitives. It is comforting, and Clint lets the carelessness of it sink in before he goes back to checking if they are being followed. A job he spent most of the last two hours doing.

"Hey, Sucker-bird!" Clint chuckles a little at the nickname he gets. Then turns his attention to Tony's expression.

This wasn't good, this wasn't good at all.

He shifts his gaze from the worried and, strangely, scared embodiment of Tony to the mayhem in front of the car.

This was not just "not good", this was bad. No, this was worse.

"I think we've got a problem." Is the last thing he hears Tony say, before something in front of the car decides to blow up, and all goes black.

Authors note;

I have yet to determine a direction in which this is gonna go, but i really enjoy playing with clints perspective, so I'll probably continue this one.
but, as always, feel free to comment or add to favorites if you feel like it.
and I hope to write to you soon.
cilia.