Cabin in the Woods

Part 2

Skye stared at the flickering light of the fire. Temporarily proud over her ability to not only light, but operate the complicated flue system after nearly choking to death a mere two times.

Skye stared at the empty cup cabinet, wondering how long she had to ration her cocoa puffs before she became desperate and broke into the Trix.

Skye stared at the distant lake peeking through the haze of the electric fence. Maybe she'd trust herself to go on the other side and attempt to fish.

Skye stared at the blank computer screen. She ran out of things to do on the internet, and learning that her "Spirit Animal" according to Buzzfeed amounted to a rather demure looking squid only deepened her propensity for melancholy.

Skye attempted to set up a Netflix account, only to discover Canadian Netflix was subpar to its English counterpart and therefore useless to watch re-runs of Greys Anatomy or Lost.

Skye was, in few short terms, bored beyond all reasonable sense. She'd used the computer chair to circle the room forty-five times and tried to crust chicken with Captain Crunch. She decided to take up bird watching and gave up when a pigeon christened her shoulder. It had been three weeks since Coulson first dropped her off in the Canadian wilderness and still Skye had yet to find that peace she was looking for. The one that told her these powers she'd been given weren't going to get out of control or be directed toward the harm of others she actually cared about. She wanted to stop hurting herself and give her micro fractures a chance to heal. However, every time she woke they only seemed to be getting worse. How did anyone expect her to control herself in her sleep?

More and more the fall retreat to the cabin in the woods felt less like a chance to find her inner soul and more like losing her sanity altogether. Coulson hadn't dropped by himself in over a week. May said she'd be that next morning. Fighting the inner chaos was one thing, realizing that she was simply lonely seemed to make her attempts at control fall on deaf ears altogether.

She had just decided to fix herself a bowl of something for her late noon snack when the sound of a key in the door handle surprised her. Maybe Coulson had decided to drop by after all. Skye tried to come up with a witty retort on the fly to fling at the man, but when the door swung inward, her jaw dropped.

Clint froze and blinked. "Um, hi." He said in surprise.

"Who are you?!" She demanded, dropping the milk carton on the floor and backing toward the wall. She made no move to close the refrigerator door. What was a random guy doing out in the middle of the woods? How had he scaled the electric fence, punched in the door code, and let alone even find the place without getting shot by one of the drones along the way?

Clint shrugged. He never expected to find someone else bedding down in the old cabin, but it really didn't matter to him. He only planned to stay until the next afternoon when his evac arrived. Ignoring her discomfort, he strode right inside and dropped his paper bags on the counter top. Nonchalantly he leaned down, picked up the half spilled milk, and returned it to the fridge shelf.

"You can't be here! I'm not supposed to—How did you even get here? Did—" she stammered out, trying to find words past her shock at seeing another living soul. She was dangerous. She could kill people. The only reason she was at the cabin at all was to keep others safe from her uncontrollable new powers. Through her sputtering, she finally came to a realization. "Who are you?!"

"Hawkeye." Clint affirmed. He went to his bags and began extricating some of the contents.

Where had she heard that name before? Skye tried to force her mind to focus on the task at hand without making the entire room shake. When it hit her, she gasped. "Wait a minute, I recognize you. You're an Avenger, right?"

He snickered some to himself, extracting a case of Millers and sitting it on the counter. He leaned back on the kitchen table and finally spared her a glance. "You know, Tony kinda said that off the cuff to look cool in front of Loki. He's the one who made it stick. That and Cap, I guess, didn't make a big enough argument for Freedom Force."

She remained clear on the other side of the room by the old landline computer Coulson once installed ten years ago and refused to upgrade since. Skye was glad that she'd decided to put on her supposedly power-deactivating gloves that morning. Without thinking about it, she crossed her arms, tugging at them a few times. Even upright she seemed to ball up into herself. Telling her he was an Avenger did very little to improve her physical state of comfort at his presence.

Clint's mouth flipped up in a grin. "I'm not fixing that wall before Coulson comes back."

Skye did not expect that comment out of the famous hero. She looked to where he indicated. It was a fist-shaped depression in the vibranium studded interior walls. The metal was overlaid in normal wood paneling, giving the cabin a rustic feel without showing the nature of its true calling, keeping the beasts contained inside the cage.

She glanced at it a little guilty. "Did you do that?" She asked, indicating the colossal fist imprint.

Clint snorted, shaking his head. "You must have me mixed up with a ten foot green gorilla with a bad attitude and worse breath. No. That was all Hulk." He reached into his case of beers and extracted two. Opening the fridge again, he set them inside on the shelf and let the weight of the door close itself. He next opened the top cupboard and peered at the cobwebs inside. Skye already knew there wasn't much left. May planned to bring her the next shipment of supplies when she arrived tomorrow. Having no success finding whatever it is he wanted in the first cabinet, he moved to the second, then dropped to the lower cabinets and even debated checking the dishwasher.

"What're you looking for?" she asked.

"Coke. One can. I always keep six of them, I just want one." He stopped. In horror he spun around and glared at her. The wash of shame and terror came back into her expression. "Awe, come on! Didn't Coulson tell you not to drink them?!"

She threw her hands into the air. "Look, I don't even know how you got in here past the laser fence, ok. No one is supposed to be out here with me. That's the whole reason I'm out here at all! I'm dangerous!"

"I helped erect the fence. I disabled it to get in. Steve spent time up here too. Coulson did his food shopping and kept him out of trouble." Clint leaned against the counter and rubbed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes. "The one thing I was looking forward to. Figures. Knew I should have just bought them."

"Did you not hear me?" Skye asked, taking another cautionary step back. She could feel the heat from the fire she'd stoked warming the back of her jeans. "I'm dangerous. You. Must. Leave. I don't want to hurt you."

"Oh gimme a break. I work with the Hulk." Clint replied, unperturbed.

"I'm not the—"

"I don't care." He cut her off. His ice blue eyes sailed across the room and honed in on her like a vampire might draw in his prey. "Look, girl. I just hiked twenty-three miles since last night. I smell like arm pits and nitroglycerine and I just barely escaped where I was with my life. The Hulk is running around out there right now and he'll be here by nightfall at the latest so," Clint opened his hands and let them fall. "You're just gonna have to deal with whatever little issue you've got going on because I'm not leaving."

"But—"

"Besides," Clint drew out one of the warm beers, hooked the edge of the lid on his ring, and popped the cap off. "This was my bolt-hole way before it was yours." He held out the open bottle for her to take.

Skye analyzed the offering for a moment without decided to move closer. Sure she never expected to be sharing this place with anyone else, but Hawkeye was an Avenger. A real life, in the flesh, save the entire planet style Avenger. If he wanted something, he literally outranked every single command she'd ever been given. Then again, he also had a point. He worked with Bruce Banner, the Hulk himself, every single day. If anyone could handle being around her and her unpredictable powers it was an Avenger's class superhero. She decided to take him up on the offer. What other option did she have? Asking him to leave sure didn't work.

"What, I get the warm one and you save the cold ones for yourself?" She asked, trying to lighten the air.

He grinned then added the open beer to the two others already chilling. "Name's Clint Barton. Ex-agent for SHIELD. I've been working the Avenger's detail since New York. I'm allergic to blueberries. No, I do not share a room with Banner. Yes, Thor does snore and no one can stand it. Yes, Captain America does have American flag boxers." He folded his arms. "I bought them for him as a gag."

Skye tried to match his smile with her own. "I'm Skye, newer Agent for SHIELD, working under Coulson."

"Ok, fine. You know me, I know you. Does that make you feel less awkward?" He asked.

"Don't you want to know why I'm here?"

To her utter amazement, Clint said, "No." and completely changed the topic. "You said newer agent. Who's your FTO? Is Coulson still doing that?"

"Melinda May."

Clint laughed. "Cookies? That's rich. Thought she gave up Field Training after the last girl broke her tibia."

"Cookies?" Skye asked.

"Old joke. Don't tell her I called her that. Actually go ahead and tell her, and tell all her friends. In fact, I grant you the powers to call her that too. Do people still say she's the Calvary?" Clint grabbed his paper grocery bags and folded them up along their seams before stashing them between the trashcan and the wall. Skye had seen six others there before when Coulson first brought her by. She wondered who they were from at first, now it seemed to make sense.

"She doesn't like it but, yeah, people say that about her." Skye admitted.

"Yeah, well, I started that one too. It wasn't her fault, but it kinda was. That's what you get for riding to my infrequent rescue. First time not having an exit strategy didn't pan out for me. This guy goes and takes me, my mark, and the fifteen other SHIELD agents that I had as back up in. Melinda was on our ER calls that night and she was the first one available to respond when my mission went belly up. She dropped a quinjet on the place. She's such a hard case when she wants to be." Finishing with the bags, he crossed the room, yanking off his leather jacket as he went. Skye could hardly believe how comfortable he was in the place. It was like watching the owner of a home come back and find the house-sitter had cleaned him out. He set his jacket on the back of the computer chair.

"You're the one that started the Cavalry?" Skye exclaimed.

He shrugged. "I call Cap Admiral Flag behind his back. Somethings just stick."

Skye backed away as Clint came closer to her. He pulled out the single leather chair and rearranged the room to have it centered between the coffee table and the fire. He plopped down onto the cushion and one-by-one extracted his feet from his hard soled boots. Skye was fortunate she'd backed up so soon. The sheer musk of man coming off of him was enough to fell a water buffalo.

"You weren't kidding about needing a shower." She whispered, mildly repulsed.

"I said I smelled like armpits. I didn't say I needed a shower. Which I do. But right now, I want to sleep. I'm tired, I'm cold, and I really want caffeine. But first and foremost, I'm tired. You try fighting forty-five frog men over fifteen square miles, uphill, on a mountain, in the woods and tell me how you feel afterwards." Clint kicked his boots away and hiked his sweaty, white socks onto the edge of the table, adding yet another upsurge of scent to the already gathering brown cloud. Skye swallowed and forced her arm to cover her nose.

"Do me a favor and wake me when Banner shows up. Tell him I've only had one morphine pen."

Skye shook her head. "Wait, what?! I thought you said it was the Hulk."

Clint scrunched down in the old leather couch until he was balled up against one of the armrests. "When he gets here, he will be. Don't worry, he can't get through the door till he turns back."

"Are you serious?" Skye exclaimed. Somewhere in the distance a ROAR! split the air, tearing her attention away from the Avenger. It resonated like the sound Steven Spielberg gave to the T-rex in Jurassic Park.

"That'd be him." Clint said, yawning as he sank down a little more. His eyes slid closed and he tucked in against the armrest. "One dose. Remember that." He whispered.

Before Skye could protest and shake him back to consciousness, Clint had slipped right into his cat nap. Another shout from the rampaging Hulk hurled through the woodland. She tried to swallow her fears as the room around them began to quake.


No offense intended toward Canadians. I live in a little island country and our netflix is SERIOUSLY different than the USA :)