Long time no update! Well here's the update! Sorry, I am way too tired and lazy to make lame excuses or a decent an intro.

Disclaimer: I no own Marvel.

A week came and went with her cast. Things stayed the same. Natasha hadn't come back, still doing her business trip thing. Cat had called her, once, but she had been too tired and had only stayed on the phone for a couple minutes. Steve was still her babysitter. He didn't let her have coffee in the mornings. She realitated by waking up at ungodly hours of the morning and drinking it by herself. School was still boring. She was ambidextrous, but she still used her cast to get out of doing most of the work. Although she did have to participate in the group activities. Alex, the kid from the principal's office, was nice but still uptight with rules. She sat with him, Roxanne, and a few other people during lunch. Things were...normal. Ish.

Cat still wasn't used to sleeping in her room.

It was odd waking up and not seeing peeling walls and other girls drooling on their respective pillows. It was weird not waking up to a growl in her stomach, or be sweaty and jittery from repeating nightmares and stifled screams. She had adjusted quickly to the foster home rooms because they were much like her old room in Kyle's scrappy little apartment.

The bed also contributed to her discomfort. The mattresses back in the foster home were as hard as rocks, and only big enough so that Cat's toes skimmed the edge. But after awhile, she had adapted to them. Her bed now was big and soft and springy, good for jumping up and down on, but not so much for sleeping. She felt like she was sleeping on a marshmallow, which should have been a good thing but she constantly felt like she was falling. So the majority of the time, Cat took her blankets and slept on the floor.

Except most days she didn't get much sleep.

But then when she slept on the floor, her cast still hurt and itched. The pain had been reduced to a throbbing faint pain, but it was still bulky and annoying to carry around everywhere. She could never get in a comfortable position on the floor. Not to mention, her various nightmares still haunted her. Dreams of the car crash, the funeral, the bullies at school, Kyle's bad nights where he went all psycho. She had them for long enough to know how to keep still and silent when she started having the urge to scream. She knew how to deal with them, she just didn't know how to keep them away.

Often she ended up skipping a few hours of sleep to either play games on her computer, go downstairs to get a snack, or wander outside and come back into the house before anyone could notice that she was gone.

Sure, it was unhealthy, supposedly. But she never needed much sleep anyway. Coffee was a way better substitute for nightmares and uncomfortable casts. She used to sneak out of the foster home all the time. The chirping crickets outside and cool night air helped her get her thoughts together and feel less alone. When she was walking out in the streets, she could think better. (One of the side effects of having ADHD was that she focused better when she was multitasking.) She'd been careful not to wake Natasha or whoever was in the house whenever she slipped outside in her new house.

She was lying on her pile of blankets on the floor, wearing an oversized T-Shirt and pajama bottoms, listening to the sounds of the night. She was ADHD, but she could lie very still when she was really tired and too lazy to move. The silence was both good and bad. One, it let her think more. Two, often she got so bored that deep memories started drifting forward.

She sat up abruptly, willing the memories to go away. She picked herself up from the floor and reached for a glass of water. The water cooled her throat and made her feel more refreshed. She was about to get back onto her makeshift bed until-

"How does the cast feel, midget?"

The sound of Clint Barton's voice nearly startled Cat into jumping several feet in the air. He had climbed up the house to Cat's window and was hanging there, propped by his elbows. He smirked at her dropped jaw.

She came over to him. "How did you climb up here? I'm two stories up!"

"I've got mad skills," he responded. "I could teach you sometime."

"How long were you watching me sleep?"

"You weren't doing much sleeping, as far as I could tell. And no, only for a few minutes." His face turned mischievous. "Why? Did I scare you?"

"In your dreams. Ever heard of knocking?" she snarked, regaining her wits quickly. The sound of her voice was hoarse from the early morning. "Or using the door, for that matter?"

"It's past midnight. Even if that you did hear it, I don't think you would have opened the door anyhow. And just for the record, knocking is overrated. Just ask Santa and his reindeer. You don't see them using the door, do you?" Clint heaved himself up through the window and landed neatly on Cat's floor.

"Please. I haven't believed in Santa since I was three," she said.

He gave her a sad look. "That's depressing. What kind of tortured childhood did you have? I still believed in Santa when I was your age."

"Not too surprising, to be honest," Cat gave him a crooked half smile before she turned serious. "Why are you here, Clint? Natasha said you were busy with stuff. And it's, like-" She glanced at the clock on her bedside table. "-2:49 in the freaking morning."

"I feel compelled to point out that you are also awake at 2:49 in the freaking morning. I wanted to check up on you. I just got back from a business trip. Something told me that you were going to be up this early, so here I am." Clint settled himself comfortably on her perfectly made bed, throwing his feet up as if it was his. The moonlight hit his face. With a burst of shock, Cat noticed the bruises on his face and the exhaustion lidding his eyes.

She took a seat next to him. "Clint, what happened to your face?"

"What? Did I turn ugly or something?"

She was too confused to make a quip about he was already ugly in the first place. "No, you're hurt!"

His fingers grazed the bruises lightly. "Oh, yeah. Don't worry, it's nothing. Barely stings. I got this, too." He held up his arm to show a bandage wrapped around his left bicep, dried blood on the edges. "A couple of muggers got me on the streets. Nasty guys."

Cat reached out to touch them but drew her fingers back. "It looks bad."

"You don't look too peachy yourself," he commented. "You've broken your arm. How did that happen?"

"Some boy on the soccer field pushed me," Cat said, watching Clint's face darken. "But don't worry, I socked him in the face. He's going to have a bruised jaw for a while now. Wait, how did you even know that I broke my arm?"

"Nat told me via text. Next time you see that asshole, you point him in my direction and I'll return the favor." His expression turned reprimanding. "But only I can do that. You know that fighting isn't always the answer, right?"

"Ease up," she groaned. "I already got the lecture from Steve."

Clint's eyes widened. "Steve?"

"Oh, yeah!" Cat remembered that Clint probably didn't know the blonde man. "Big blonde dude. Muscular." And she was 75% sure he was Captain America, even though he kept on denying it. She was still trying to figure out how she could trick him into admitting it or question Natasha on why she was buddy-buddy with Captain America, of all people. "He's one of Natasha's friends. He's just playing babysitter until she gets back from her business trip or whatever."

"I know Steve," which surprised Cat. "He's one of my coworkers. We're totally tight." He looked down at the blankets and pillows on the floor, noticing them for the first time. "Were you sleeping on the floor, Cat?"

"Bed's too soft."

"You should tell Nat. She could get you a harder mattress."

"I don't want to be a bother," Cat said quietly. "The floor is fine."

Clint gave her a long look, then settled back into one of the pillows. "Whatever. Why are you up so late, anyway?"

She toyed with the idea of telling him the truth for about a second, then decided Nah. "I just woke up a few minutes ago. You probably woke me up with all of your stalkery ways."

"I do not have stalkery ways."

"Uh, last time I checked, climbing up the wall of a house to watch someone while they sleep falls way past the stalker line."

He grumbled, "I come all this way with an injured arm to check up on you, and this is the thanks I get."

"Thank you, Clint." She leveled him with a look that read 'Happy now?'

"You're welcome." Clint suddenly had a brilliant, evil idea. "Cat, do you happen to know where Steve is sleeping at the moment?"

She nodded, a question in her eyes. "I think he fell asleep on the couch."

"And what about the quantity of whipped cream in this huge overly excessive house?"

Her eyes lit up as she realized where he was going with this. She leaped up from the bed and started creeping toward the door. "I'll get the whipped cream and the Sharpies."

"You take the pink, I'll take the green. Give him a beard if you want. And an eyepatch," Clint instructed. "And be gentle about it. No need to wake Stevieson before our miracle transformation is over."

Cat snapped a silly salute. "Aye-aye, Captain."

Clint smirked at that.

And they got to work. It wasn't the most elaborate prank, but it was still hilarious. Clint was preparing the cans of whipped cream. Who knew Natasha was such a huge whipped cream hoarder? Cat drew an eyepatch, with Clint's instructions in mind. It was the most fun midnight prank she'd ever had.

Soon enough, Steve had a full beard, a twirly mustache monocle, and various other accessories on his face. He snored lightly through the entire thing, to Cat's amusement. Clint looked at the final art piece in satisfaction.

"Nice work, partner," he said. He handed her a whipped cream can. "Now let's get to business."

Eventually, Cat had to think poor Steve. His face was piled with whipped cream. There was whipped cream under his chin, under his shirt, and all over the body. And the couch, as well. He was not going to have a fun time once he woke up. Which was the entire point. Cliny cackled in mirth and snapped a few pictures with his phone.

"This is high-quality blackmail material," he told Cat.

"How is he still asleep?" Cat poked him in the side. Steve stayed motionless. A thought struck her. "Maybe he's dead."

"No, he's still breathing." Clint stared at their work in half triumph, half horror. "But there is a possibility that we could be dead once Nat sees this. We ruined her couch." He suddenly looked so horrified that his face resembled more like someone visiting a dead friend's grave than someone who had just pranked someone with whipped cream and Sharpie.

Cat saw her opening and took it. Without warning, she sprayed him in the face. He yelled out in protest. He tried ducking and turning away, but she kept her finger on the nozzle until it sputtered to a stop. His face and the top of his shirt was smeared in whipped cream. Cat giggled. He looked like a giant whipped cream monster. A glob of whipped cream dripped from his chin onto the rug.

"Oh, it is on," he growled playfully, grabbing a can.

She yelped and grabbed another can, shrieking gleefully, "Whipped cream war!"

She ran away laughing, licking the delicious white substance off of her face and ducked behind a lamp. Clint chased after her, shouting things and waving the can in the air furiously. It was obvious, however, that he wasn't really putting into an effort into chasing her. They were both laughing and spraying whipped cream into the air.

It was the most fun she'd had in forever. She was sticky with whipped cream all over her, aiming mindlessly at randomly objects that could be Clint and spraying. And she was having fun. She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed so genuinely, or freely. And all of the sudden Clint was a few inches behind her, shouting "BOO!" in her ear.

She yelled and ducked as he bowled her over. "Watch the cast!"

He stopped, giving her a concerned look. "Did I hurt you?"

"Nope!" She sprayed him in the face.

"You clever little brat!" Clint's eyes narrowed in mock anger. He pinned her to the floor and despite her squirming and laughing and begging him to stop, sprayed whipped cream all over her face. Cat lifted her chin so that the majority of it hit her mouth. She struggled free and pressed on the nozzle, only to realize it was out of whipped cream. Instead, she hit him over the head with the can. It made a loud THUNK as it hit his head and bounced off.

He froze, body going still. His eyes were glazed to some point over her shoulder. Cat frowned at him, guilt prickling at her once she wondered if he had really hurt him with the can. What if she gave him a concussion? There were some pretty nasty bruises over his face. She shouldn't have hit him that hard…

"Clint, are you-"

"What the hell is going on."

Cat froze as well. She so knew that voice.

She spun on her heel and cringed at the sight. The living room floor was full of whipped cream. The rugs, the couches, the furniture. A few objects had broken. Clint and her were standing in the middle of it all, covered from head to toe in the creamy white stuff and looking guiltier than criminals. They had been so focused on getting each other they hadn't noticed a certain redhead unlock the door and stare in disbelief at the scene in front of her.

Exhaustion dulled the edges of her customary hard eyes, but she held herself with her usual swagger. Her hair was straightened out. There was a butterfly bandage above her brow, but other than that she looked fine. She was wearing a tight-fitting leather catsuit, which tugged at the edges of Cat's memory, but she was too frozen to process it.

Natasha was going to take her back.

Oh, she was dead. She was so dead. She had only been living here for a couple of weeks. She'd taken everything for granted, expecting it all to be temporary. She'd known that at some point Natasha had to grow tired of her, just like all of her previous foster parents, and throw her back into the foster home. She was too troublesome, too hyper, too difficult, too mouthy. Cat had heard them all. In the weeks she lived with Natasha, she thought that maybe this time it was different from the others. But all her hopes had crumbled into bits. She just hadn't expected it to be so soon. Why was she so stupid? Desperation made her lower her head and clench her teeth so that the tears wouldn't burn behind her eyelids.

She was aware of Clint, by her side, looking every bit as stiff and startled. "Nat, before you say anything-"

"Barton, you'd better have a goddamn good explanation for this," Natasha demanded, voice like ice. It was heart-wrenching.

"We were pranking Steve," he said weakly.

Cat was looking at her feet, holding her breath. Her chest felt tight and her stomach was doing a full-out performance of the macarena. She swore she could hear Natasha's eyes roll. "I can see that. I wasn't aware that 'pranking Steve' meant covering the entire living room in whipped cream."

"We were redecorating," she offered.

Clint gave her a You're-Not-Helping look. "It was a whipped cream war."

"You of all people should not be having any kind of war with your cast." The intensity of Natasha's glare shifted to Cat, although it softened a smidge when she saw the dark smudges under Cat's eyes and the tiredness in her face. "Was there any particular reason why you decided to have this at 3 am in the morning?"

She sighed without waiting for an answer. "It's too early in the morning for this. I need a shower, sleep, and Advil. I'm going to go upstairs. This place better be spotless when I come back, or else."

She drifted up the stair with her bags, graceful as a panther, stopping only to steal some of the whipped cream off the pile on Steve's face and eat it. Clint and Cat watched her go and exchanged looks of relief once she was gone.

"That woman is scary as hell," Clint muttered once she was out of earshot. "I thought the world had seen the last of us."

Cat looked after her retreating back sadly. God, the woman hated her now. She'd seen it in her eyes. She wanted Cat gone more than anything. She wanted to be relieved, like Clint was, but couldn't muster up the happiness. How could he be all joking and cheerful when Cat was going to go so soon?

Clint patted her on the back. "Let's start with cleaning this place up, yeah?"

With the help of Windex and wipes, they wiped the entire living room down. Clint roused Steve out of his slumber and after giving him a brief explanation as to why he was there, dragged him into helping them clean up. He had been outraged after finding the whipped cream in his face and clothes and made Clint delete the pictures. ("I have extras," Clint whispered, slipping Cat a wink.) After they had cleaned hosed themselves off in the garden and all taken a hot shower, Clint made a pot of coffee in celebration.

"Not for you, kiddo," he said to Cat, pouring Steve a mug and then drinking straight from the pot. "Only adults get to have coffee in the morning."

"Don't call me that. I've been awake since two," she complained. "I deserve coffee."

Steve had sided with Clint. "It's not healthy. But I could make some hot chocolate."

Cat wasn't stubborn enough to argue with the thought of Natasha kicking her out after this event. And she needed all the energy she could get, so she brought the mug of piping hot chocolate into her room to mull the day over. She steeled herself for the conversation that Natasha was going to have with her. The "I'm Sorry But You Need To Go" conversation.

Then she made her bed. She started putting all of her things scattered around the room in her tattered backpack, like that useless snowglobe and the rest of the candy. She didn't have much. She was about to put all of her new clothes in as well, before realizing that they were technically Natasha's and instead folding them as neatly as she could and stacking them on top of each other. When she was done, she checked the time.

5:32 AM, the clock read.

Cat finally looked at her room one last time. She didn't want to leave. The selfish, stupid part of her protested that she liked her room. The dark drapes, the soft carpet, the good for jumping but not sleeping bed. She liked Steve, Clint, and Natasha. Steve was undoubtedly Captain America and every bit as awesome as he was in the history textbooks, Clint was comforting and fun, Natasha was caring in her own icy way. She liked her school and her friends, sort of at least. They were tolerable. And-

She was getting so stupidly sappy, it was hard listening to her own mental monologue.

She knew her feelings were one-sided. Natasha didn't even care about her, Steve was only being her friend for a favor, and Clint had to be nice to her, he was Natasha's friend as well. She didn't want to leave, but she also didn't want to go to the foster home again. She glanced at the window where Clint had entered and got an idea.

She didn't have much practice running away. She'd only done it a few times, and every time she had never made it far before the foster parents or the police tracked her down and brought her back. But this time, she really didn't want to go back. She imagined the jeers and the taunts thrown her way.

"Here comes little orphan Annie! Didn't get your Daddy Warbucks this time?"

"What is this, like your tenth foster home?"

"Why don't you just run away and never come back? You're better off there than here, where you'll never get adopted!"

They were all right. She really didn't want to leave the house, but more than anything, she didn't want to go back into the system. Cat opened the window and eyed the length from there to the ground. Not bad. If she could just leap out and drop down to the windowsill below her feet and then go down the water pipe fire pole style, she'd be fine. Her bedroom was on the back of the house, so no one would see her leave. The cast would be an issue, but eh, she'd just find a way around it. She grabbed her backpack and heaved herself up and over the window.

She lowered herself down to the top of the window sill, her back flat the wall. Cat looked up at her window. Too late to go back now. She was aware of how high she was from the ground. If she moved too fast, she might slip and end up as a lovely stain on the floor. She wasn't scared of heights, but she did have a few qualms about dying at the tender age of eight-almost-nine years old.

Slowly, she inched sideways toward the water pipe. There was nothing to hold onto, and nothing to trust except her own balance. She got close enough to grasp the water pipe. Here was where the cast was a nuisance. She had practiced going down a fire pole before when her class took a trip to the fire station. But then the pole was greased and smooth. The water pipe was by no means smooth. What if her weight pulled the pipe out and all the water started flooding the neighborhood?

She was overthinking it again. With one hand, she threw herself off the windowsill and clung to the water pipe as she slid down clumsily. She let go too early at the bottom and ended up rolling on the ground, but her backpack saved her from breaking any more bones. Cat looked at the house one last time.

Last time to change your plans.

Cat hesitated and started at a brisk walk in the other direction. In the movies, people always ran and made a show of it, but that would attract too much attention. She wasn't sure where she was heading, but anywhere was better than there at the moment.

She wondered if anyone would notice her absence.

HAHHAHAHHAHA! Plot twist! Who saw that one coming?

A lot of you, probably, because it's cliche and it's great so who cares what you think? Jk, kind of.

Anyway, review! It doesn't need to be a great review, or a nice one or anything. Just review, because I'm desperate. There are 100 reviews at the moment...who will be the first to break the streak?