"Clint!" Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, turned to see a small mass of red-blond hair race towards him.
"Ait, what are you doing here?" Clint asked as the girl stopped in front of him.
"Isn't it obvious?" she huffed. "I'm visiting my favorite cousin!" she smiled.
"Uh-huh." Clint raised his eyebrow. Fionnait frowned.
"Fine, Ma and Da are arguing something fierce and I want to be away from them." She sighed. Clint gave her a hug.
"Sorry, squirt," Clint sighed. "How bad is it this time?"
"I think they're heading for divorce, or worse." She sighed. Clint was reminded about the time when he had been called during a meeting with Nick Fury by her during one of her parents' fights. He could here every word that was shouted, and sense the fear in her voice, which prompted him to stay on the phone with her for about four hours until the fighting stopped. Wait, Fionnait had snuck outside and hid in her secret hideout in the forest: an abandoned ancient Celtic house. Fury had not been pleased, but could at least give him a break.
"Don't worry, Ait, it'll be all right." Clint smiled. "Do you have your bags that you brought with you?"
"Yeah, this way." Fionnait and Clint walked to where she left her bags in a nice hidden area.
"I see you upgraded." Clint said as he lifted her bow and quiver.
"Yeah, like it?" Fionnait smiled.
"It's good, better than a lot that I've seen around here." Clint said.
"Awesome, hey where do you live?" Fionnait asked as she and Clint started walking.
"It's a small place." Clint shrugged. "I don't like big fancy places like Stark."
"Who's Stark?" She tilted her head.
"Tony Stark, he's not exactly someone I want you hanging around too much." Clint knew, just knew, he would be over protective if Tony and his cousin started hanging out together.
"Why?" She said.
"He's not a good role model, in my opinion, for younger people like you. He is a playboy, don't ask me to give you any details because they are very inappropriate, and what part of his actions support is not how anyone should act." Clint made a face.
"Oh, anyone else I should know about?" Fionnait grinned.
"Well, there's Thor, yes I mean Thor the Norse God of Thunder," Clint saw the look on her face, "and Steve Rogers, Doctor Bruce Banner, and Natasha Romanoff. Yeah, you definitely have to meet Natasha."
"Natasha?" she asked.
"She's from Russia. She has the best martial art skills I've ever seen. We've been close friends for a few years now." Clint smiled.
"Cool!" Fionnait grinned.
"Well, here we are." Clint said as they reached his small house.
"I like it!" Fionnait said. Clint led her to his spare room that he always felt he needed and now he knew. He had a guest room and another bedroom other than his.
"This will be your room, mine's right down the hall if you need me." Clint said as he put her bags down. His phone started to ring. It was Tony. "I need to take this call really quick. I'll be right outside in the hall."
"Barton, we need you downtown now!" Tony hissed. "Where are you?"
"I'm at home, handling something very important." Clint snapped angrily.
"Can't it wait?" Tony said.
"No, but give me a few minutes and I'll be there." Clint growled and hung up. He poked his head through the door. "Ait, I have to go, duty calls. Feel free to explore around, I have some food stuff in the kitchen if you want to fix you something. There is an archery range a block away also. I'll see you in a bit."
"See you in a bit, Clint." Ait nodded as she pulled out her shirts. Clint ran to his room, changed into his S.H.E.I.L.D. uniform, grabbed his bow and quiver, and went to where Tony was downtown.
"This had better be good." Clint growled as he got there.
"We've got some jack-booted thugs that decided to be more than S.H.E.I.L.D., the police, and military could handle at the moment." Iron Man said.
"You couldn't handle this without me?" Hawkeye was really angry now. They called him away from his cousin that lived across the Atlantic Ocean to deal with some thugs.
"No, otherwise we wouldn't have called you." Captain America rolled his eyes.
"Grr…. Where are the thugs?" Hawkeye growled and closed his eyes.
"Why are you so angry? Did we call you away from a hot date?" Iron Man smirked.
"You don't realize how close I am to strangling you, suit and all, right now." Hawkeye growled dangerously.
"Ignore him, Hawkeye, the sooner we get this over with, the better." Black Widow sighed.
"Right, now answer the question." Hawkeye growled.
"Over there, and they don't look happy." Bruce Banner pointed to some mutant thugs.
"Okay, let's see, take them down and then you can go back." Hawkeye mumbled. He pulled out three steel net throwing arrows and carefully aimed them at the three thugs. He released the string and the thugs were netted. Hawkeye smirked, pulled out a gas arrow, shot it, watched it knock out the thugs, and then turned to the Avengers. "I am going home. Talk to you later, bye." With that he turned and went home.
During the fight with the thugs, Fionnait was at her new 'home'.
"Yes! He has what I need!" Fionnait triumphantly pulled out what was needed to make Irish stew. She started the stew and then turned to the task of adding a bread bowl to put the stew. She handmade the dough and then shaped it into oval-ish shapes. Smiling as she put the bowls into the oven, she sighed.
"Clint'll like this when it's done." She grinned. As she waited for the food to finish baking, she walked around the house. About half an hour later, she pulled the bread out of the oven. Pulling out a knife from a drawer, she cut a circle out of each bowl and set them on plates. Smiling as she saw Clint in the driveway, she poured the stew in the bread bowls and sat the plates down on a table. Having a sour look on his face, she knew he would need something so she pulled out an Irish Red and sat it on the table beside her own glass of water. "Hungry, Clint?" she called to the archer.
"Famished. You cooked something?" Clint said as he walked over to her.
"Irish stew," Fionnait grinned and motioned to the table.
"Thank you, Ait." Clint breathed in relief. They sat down and ate their food.
"So what, exactly, got you so worked up?" Fionnait asked.
"They called me in to deal with some jack-booted thugs, which by the way I took down with a total of four arrows, that they could have handled by their selves." Clint sighed.
"Dang," Fionnait shook her head.
"How's your dance?" Clint asked.
"It's really good so far." Fionnait grinned.
"That's good." Clint smiled. They stayed up for a few more hours until Fionnait fell asleep on her chair outside. Clint picked her up, carried her into her room, set her in her bed, pulled her blankets over her, and then went to bed himself.