Chapter Four – Thank You

"I have to go. I have to find my friends, help – there will be people trapped in the rubble."

Hawk's low, soft voice brought Jen from her reverie. She nodded absently. "Me too."

"No, you need to get out of here!" His arms tightened around her. "You need to get to safety."

He was going to be difficult. Jen swallowed the argument that rose to her lips, somehow guessing that if she argued he'd probably neglect his own duties to take her to safety. Instead she nodded submissively.

They stood, together, and somehow one of her small hands was in his. She looked up at him, but he wasn't looking at her, was instead checking his weapons. Jen blinked in surprise as he suddenly held out one of his pistols to her, butt first.

"What?"

"You said you knew guns. Take it. The city will be dangerous, now – rioting – I wouldn't want you to fight aliens but I can't leave you defenceless. Take it. You've got fifteen rounds, fourteen in the clip and one loaded."

Part of Jen wanted to smack him for trusting her with a gun now. The other part wanted to swoon at his gentlemanly concern. She said nothing, though, just accepted the gun, checking it over with a simple efficiency that make Clint nod approvingly. She did know guns; even though the Walther PPK he preferred was way too big for her tiny hand, she'd be able to use it in a pinch.

They left the office together, and just coming in through the fire door they found half a dozen of the aliens. They were just lying, collapsed in a row like dominos. Hawk and Jen stepped over them carefully. Coming down the stairs were a bunch more. They had been coming down from the top, Clint was sure, looking for him.

"I need to fetch my bow," he decided, and Jen didn't intend to stay there alone, so they went back up to the twenty-third floor together and Clint collected his bow and the empty quiver. He might be able to find an arrow or two stuck in a carcass out there, and if not, well, Stark Tower was only a few blocks away. If JARVIS was still active he could have a full quiver in his hands ten seconds after walking in the doors.

It was a long way down, jogging down the stairs. Clint's combat boots made scarcely more sound than Jen's bare feet as she followed him. At the ground floor, he gestured her to stay back while he opened the door, but she shook her head, her eyes turned resolutely away from the lower floor and the bloody alien tracks on the stairs.

Out on the street, there was shattered glass everywhere. Clint started forward, and then remembered Jen's bare feet. He turned to look at her. "I'll take you to the police perimeter…"

"Fuck off, mate," she grumbled. "Just take me across the street." She pointed, and he saw that there was a shoe store there, windows smashed open.

Clint grinned. "All right." He turned to Jen and scooped her in his arms. She stiffened for a moment and then relaxed, putting her own arms around his neck. His pistol in her hand rattled against his armour for a moment before she held it away.

She was so light Clint barely registered her weight in his arms. He strode across the street carrying her, stepping over the smashed window-sill into the shoe store, carrying her right to the back, well away from the shattered glass littering the floor.

"There," Jen pointed at a stack of boxes of athletics shoes, and he nodded, approving her choice. Waited while she found a pair in a very tiny size and pulled them on. She grabbed a shoulder bag from a rack and put the pistol in it, slinging it across her shoulder, though her hand remained on the butt of the gun.

"I really need to go," Clint said. He could hear a voice that sounded suspiciously like Steve Rodgers yelling for him.

"Thank you, for everything," Jen said. They stood there facing in each other in the dim light, neither speaking for a moment.

"I will find you," Clint said roughly. One big hand came up and caressed her face, his thumb stroking over her cheekbone, down to brush against her lower lip. "Stay safe, Jen."

She licked her lips, and he groaned softly, bent his head and kissed her. Once more, he told himself. Just once more – yes, she really does taste like summer…

"HAWKEYE!" Rodgers' voice was close. Clint sighed, pulled back from Jen, and was gone in a dead run, leaping the windowsill out onto the street and landing in a crunch of broken glass.

"Cap, I'm here!"

Jen waited until she heard the two men run off down the street together before cautiously heading towards the window. The building where she worked was two blocks west of here; she was sure the other two had headed north for Stark Tower and wouldn't see her. So she stepped out on the street and headed west.

In the lobby of her building, she found her co-workers marshalling. Most of them had been hiding in air-ducts, just as she had expected, and they were already arming themselves with tools to get out and start looking for survivors. They fell on her with shouts of relief, and two of the guys insisted on walking her up to her office so she could get changed into her working clothes.

Jen left the purloined shoes – and the bag with Hawk's gun in it – locked in her desk. She changed into her cargo pants and pocketed shirt, dragged a cap on over her head and dumped the despised, and now wrecked, skirt suit in the bin. She hated it when her bosses sent her along to meetings just because they wanted a female presence to make the firm look good. She was an engineer, not a PR person. She spent her life crawling through ducts and fixing machinery, and devising ways to make things work better.

Putting on her work boots, she grabbed her tool bag and left the office at a run, confident that even if she ran into Hawk now, he'd never recognise her.

Her team were relieved to see her, but that didn't stop them nagging her about where she'd been as they methodically searched the next building to theirs for survivors. In the end she told them she'd been trapped in a glass elevator for a while and seen a lot of the battle, but eventually managed to get out and take refuge in the ducts until it was all over.

Somehow, telling them about Hawk would have been wrong. Those few moments were hers. Hers, and his. If he ever did find her – though she doubted he'd bother – maybe then she would tell them then. Until then, she would hold her peace.

A/N I would love some comments to tell me how I'm going, pretty please? Do you like Jen? Is she a good match for Hawkeye?

Soundtrack for this chapter:

Amazing: Aerosmith

You And Me: Lifehouse

Leave The Pieces: The Wreckers