July 2014, Manhattan
It had been a perfectly normal Thursday for Kate. She had spent it with Pepper, who was slowly giving her more jobs to do.
Kate wasn't sure if she was Pepper's PA or her protégé, but she was here for it either way - who didn't want to be Pepper Potts when they grew up?
She had left Lucky in the apartment with the balcony door open so he could get out if he needed to - Pepper had had some meetings and, as much as she loved the dog, having an over-excited Labrador in the room probably wouldn't give the kind of impression she wanted.
Her dad was in Europe with most of the team - she wasn't supposed to know why, but she was fairly sure they were taking out a HYDRA base.
He had gone out of his way to find her before he left, give her a hug, and tell her he loved her, so she had a feeling it was a dangerous one.
She was trying not to constantly check her phone, but she couldn't help it.
The meetings were over for the day, the sun beginning to set outside, and Pepper was just finishing up for the night. She had suggested that they order pizza and wait together for everyone's return, so Kate was just waiting for her.
Then the lights suddenly went off.
Kate glanced up at the ceiling automatically. "What's happened?"
"JARVIS?" Pepper asked, when there was no immediate response.
JARVIS did not reply, which was a concern in itself.
Pepper pressed a few buttons on her keyboard and cursed, her eyes widening. "Shit. We have company."
"HYDRA?" Kate asked.
"Probably," Pepper said, jumping to her feet. "They're not up to this floor yet; come on, we need to get up to the labs."
"Is up a good idea?" Kate asked, following her regardless.
"Better up than down," Pepper said grimly. "The systems on the private floors are separate from the lower, so hopefully they should be more secure."
Sure enough, when they reached the lab floors, the alarms were blaring, and the support staff were rushing around to secure equipment.
"The Tower's security has been compromised," JARVIS announced. "I am dealing with a cyber attack."
"Figured as much," Pepper said. "Where's my suit?"
"Suit?" JARVIS asked.
Pepper rolled her eyes. "Tony built me a suit; I'm not stupid. Show me." She turned to Kate. "Arm yourself if necessary, but find a place to hide."
Kate nodded, watching Pepper run off, graceful as always, even in her heels. Her heart was pounding in her throat, and she forced herself to breathe deeply and think clearly.
Most of the team was in Europe with her Dad.
Natasha and Sam had left the Tower earlier in the day to follow up on a lead in New Jersey (not that she officially knew that either). Neither of those things could be a coincidence, but that wasn't her problem right now.
Her problem was what she should do now.
"JARVIS, how far up is the infiltration?"
She got a response, but it was garbled and she couldn't understand it.
Either the cyber attack had succeeded, or he was having to focus all his systems on stopping it.
Going down to the apartment to grab her bow was not going to be an option then, not when she could be running right into them.
God, she hoped Lucky would be okay.
Instead, she headed up, letting herself into Tony's workshop - she was sure he had been working on one of her dad's bows - and there it was, still out on the workshop from earlier, along with a quiver of arrows.
She slung the quiver over her shoulder, grimacing at the weight - hers was a lot lighter, but then she didn't have the extra mechanism to change out the arrow-heads, so that made sense.
With a sinking feeling, she realised that this was not going to help her if she was attacked. Her dad could use a bow at short-range, but he had yet to teach her that particular trick.
When she had been working as a vigilante, she had kept her distance, only returning to retrieve her arrows when the coast was clear, if at all.
Natasha had been teaching her self-defence, but she was fairly sure she was nowhere near good enough to take on what could be numerous attackers - she could only take Natasha down one times out of ten, and she wasn't convinced Natasha wasn't letting her win to boost her confidence.
For the first time since HYDRA had been exposed, Kate was scared.
As much as she was now giving her dad crap about being stuck in the Tower, these people wanted to kill her.
And because she didn't know why, she had no idea if they knew where she was or if they would recognise her when they saw her.
She needed somewhere to go where she would be safe.
There was a safe-room in the apartment - her bathroom doubled as one - but that had the same problems as before; she had no idea where HYDRA had reached.
There was probably a safe-room in the labs, but she didn't know where it was.
Then it hit her - the roof.
There was nothing on the roof, nothing that HYDRA would want anyway (unless they had a desperate need for Pepper's lavender cuttings), so surely that would be safe.
Not risking the elevator, Kate took the stairs, emerging into the cool evening air. The breeze carried with it the scent of the herbs from the garden, which went some way to calming her nerves.
She tried to call her dad, but there was no answer. She didn't bother leaving a message - it could be hours before he heard it, and everything could be over by then.
She tried Natasha as well, but she didn't answer either.
Standing on the edge of the roof, Kate peered down at the city. The streets below seemed normal, completely oblivious to the drama playing out in Stark Tower, although there were a few police cars parked outside the Tower.
Was that HYDRA too?
Or had they been called by concerned neighbours?
Kate sighed, dancing a little on the spot.
She felt useless.
And rather like a sitting duck.
If HYDRA did decide to come to the roof for whatever reason, she had nowhere to hide except behind the stairwell, and the wall around the edge barely came up to her knees.
The nearest building was lower than the Tower, too far away for her to risk jumping to it.
But she had her dad's bow - and his arrows, including the one with the zip-line.
It was built to take his weight, and she was considerably lighter.
When she was on her vigilante patrols (and that seemed a lifetime ago now), she had never been this high up, and it had always been on clear, windless nights. Tonight was cloudy, and there was a stiff breeze that lifted her hair from her shoulders.
Clint had told her how to shoot in these conditions, but she had never actually done it.
She thought she could hear voices in the stairwell.
She didn't have a choice.
Backing up, Kate ran through the arrowheads until she found the zip-line arrow, and took careful aim at the stairwell on the next roof, thankfully lit by a security light.
Figure out the wind direction, she heard her dad saying. Consider the impact.
She adjusted her aim to the right, sent up a prayer to whoever might be listening, and fired.
The wind caught the arrow, altered its flight path, and then …
It sunk straight into the wall.
Not quite where she had been aiming for, but it was close enough, and it was staying put.
Kate just about managed not to shout and do a victory dance.
Now was the scary part. She tied off the line using the knots Natasha had told her near impossible to undo, hooked the bow over it, held on tight, and stepped off the roof.
The trip was faster than she had been expecting, and she swallowed her scream, her heart thudding so loudly she could hear it in her ears.
She landed heavily on the next roof; her ankle twisted painfully as she did so, and she bit back a curse, but she hadn't plummeted to her death, so that was a plus.
Pulling the arrow out of the wall, she cut the zip line so no one could follow her, and replaced it in the quiver. Then she limped over to the edge of the roof and settled down. This roof had slightly higher walls and here in the shadows she should be hidden from anyone looking across, so she felt a bit safer.
Unlike the people in the Tower.
Directly across from her, the lights were still on in the infirmary, so even though the sun had fully set, she could see everything inside perfectly clearly.
There was a man dressed in military garb and carrying an assault rifle, who was definitely not Tower security
Just a few feet away from him was the room where Dr Fitz was still in a hospital bed. He had woken from his coma, but he was still recovering from his ordeal. Jemma was with him, but even if she was unarmed, she would never be able to act in time to save them both.
And with JARVIS running at half-capacity …
Kate made up her mind and strung the bow. This time, she had the wind and a moving target to contend with, however slowly that target was moving.
Her dad had taught her how to deal with moving targets. He had not taught her how to shoot to kill, but she could take a few educated guesses from science lessons at school. Aiming for the heart at this angle would be nearly impossible, albeit a bigger target, and he was almost certainly wearing body armour.
Likewise, the head was protected by a helmet; her dad's arrows might be able to penetrate that kind of armour, but if they couldn't, it would give away her position.
Jugular it was then.
Through a window.
In the dark.
For a second, she faltered.
The HYDRA agent raised his gun, and she knew she didn't have a choice.
If she didn't take the shot, two people were going to die.
So Kate set her shoulders, took careful aim, and let the arrow fly.
The lead in New Jersey had been a dead end.
That in itself wasn't a concern - frustrating, certainly, but not concerning - but then Natasha saw that she had missed a call from Kate.
When she called back, Kate didn't answer, and that was enough to make her worry.
She said nothing aloud, but something must have shown in her face, because Sam didn't question her urgency when she insisted they return home.
The Tower was in chaos when the arrived, NYPD milling around outside, some of them holding back curious onlookers and journalists.
As they approached, one of the officers broke away to meet them.
"Ms Romanov, I'm Sergeant Rossi."
"What happened?" Natasha demanded.
"We're not sure," he admitted. "SI security seems to have done most of the work for us, and Iron Man did the rest."
Iron Man almost certainly did not do the rest, because Iron Man was in Sokovia with the rest of the team, but Natasha was not going to tell him that.
"If I'm honest, ma'am, this is way over our pay-grade."
"Thank you, Sergeant," Natasha said automatically. "We can take it from here." She walked straight past him into the Tower, Sam close at her heels.
Happy met her at the elevators. "It was HYDRA," he said by way of greeting. "It was a two-pronged assault. The physical infiltrators have been apprehended, although many of them somehow managed to kill themselves."
"HYDRA agents have been known to keep cyanide capsules in a false tooth," Natasha said. "That makes sense."
Happy nodded. "JARVIS was able to keep the cyber attack at bay, but he is currently offline repairing the damage."
"Does that mean the rest of the team was alerted?" Sam asked.
Happy shrugged. "JARVIS in the suit isn't the same as JARVIS in the Tower. Not exactly. Mr Stark might have gotten a warning, but if not … the suit won't be aware. Either way, I can't currently get hold of them."
"I'll send them a message," Natasha said. "I've got ways of reaching Barton even when he's gone dark. Where's Pepper? And … Iron Man?"
Happy grinned, almost certainly proving her suspicions. "Penthouse. The elevators are up and running."
Without JARVIS, the elevator ride was at normal speed, which seemed to take forever.
After a second, Natasha reached out and hit the button for 79 as well. "I want to check on Kate."
"Good idea," Sam said. "She's probably a bit shaken. I'm going to head up to the infirmary, help Jemma."
Natasha had to unlock the apartment door with her palm print, suddenly aware of just how much JARVIS did in the Tower - and just how much she had adjusted to it.
Lucky met her at the door, whining and pacing, and she bent to comfort him. "Kate?"
There was no answer.
The door to the balcony was still open, which was strange, because Kate should have closed it, given the circumstances.
"Kate?"
Still nothing.
Natasha dialled her number again. Not only did she not pick up, but Natasha couldn't hear the phone ringing anywhere in the apartment.
Her heart was beginning to beat a little faster, and she began to search, telling herself that maybe Kate had left her phone somewhere else and was hiding somewhere, in shock.
But Kate was nowhere to be found, and the safe room in her bathroom was unlocked and unused.
"JARVIS …" Natasha began, then stopped, mentally berating herself.
Leaving Lucky, she hurried back to the elevator and travelled up to the penthouse.
She was not at all surprised to find Pepper in an Iron Man suit - blue and silver rather than red and gold, and somewhat sleeker than Tony's, but an Iron Man suit nonetheless.
"Were you going to mention this any time soon?"
"I didn't know for sure that he'd built it," Pepper said with shaky smile. "Everyone in this building tonight … they were here working late because of me. They're my responsibility. I had to do something."
Her voice was trembling slightly, and Natasha reached out to touch her elbow. "You did good. How's Kate?"
Her words seem to reverberate, and she realised, with a jolt for fear, that Pepper had asked the same thing at almost the same time.
"She's not with you?" Natasha asked.
Pepper shook her head, her face white. "She was, when it started. I last saw her on 83. I told her to arm herself and find somewhere safe."
Natasha's phone rang and she answered it hastily on speaker-phone, but it was Sam's voice on the other end. "I'm in the infirmary. Y'all are gonna wanna see this."
He sounded more bewildered than worried, which went some way to reassuring Natasha; there couldn't be too many casualties - and if Kate was one of them, he would have said so.
But then where was she?
Natasha and Pepper exchanged a glance, but gamely went to see what he'd found.
"Don't you want to get out of the armour?" Natasha asked, trying to keep her mind off her - off Clint's missing kid.
"JARVIS had to help me into it," Pepper said, "and that wasn't easy, considering the cyber attack. I'm not attempting it on my own."
Natasha half-expected the infirmary to be completely trashed, given Sam's call, but everything seemed perfectly in order, except for a smashed window.
There really weren't many patients either - there were a few people Natasha recognised as security personnel, but they seemed to mostly have fairly minimal injuries.
Jemma was next to Fitz's hospital bed talking to Sam; she looked like she had been crying, but she seemed unharmed.
Fitz was talking too, as much as he could at the moment, since he was still recovering.
"Are you alright?" Pepper called across.
Jemma nodded. "We're fine. I didn't want to move them."
Natasha stepped into the infirmary, and stopped dead.
In the middle of the floor, just out of view from the doorway, lay two HYDRA agents.
Pepper sucked in a breath. "Are they dead?"
"They're dead," Sam confirmed, before Natasha could check. "It's the how that I figured you'd want to see."
As Natasha drew closer, she saw what Sam meant. Both agents had an arrow sticking out of their throat.
A quick glance around told her that there were no more arrows anywhere in the room.
"Jemma, where …?"
"They came from outside." Jemma said, pointing to the broken window. "The bigger one came in first, and I thought we were going to die, and then …" she trailed off, shrugging.
Natasha went over to the window, peering out into the darkness. They were more or less level with the rooftop of the next building, which was the most likely explanation for a sniper's nest.
Except Natasha was fairly sure it had not been a sniper's nest, but a hiding place.
"Sam, can you fly over to the next roof," Natasha asked, "and meet us in Clint's apartment? Kate's going to need a lift."
"You think this was Kate?" Sam said.
"She's the only one I'm aware of who's that skilled with a bow," Natasha said. "No other arrows around - she got them both with one shot each. I mean, Clint could do it, but he's not here. Jemma, can you come with me please?"
Jemma nodded, grabbing her medical kit. "Yes, of course. I'm grateful, of course, but … oh, that poor girl."
"I'll meet the others," Pepper said. "They must be on their way back soon."
Natasha barely registered the trip down, her mind racing with all the reasons for Kate to not answer the phone.
She was half-convinced that Sam was going to return empty-handed, that she was going to have to tear the world apart to find her, but then he landed on the balcony with Kate in his arms.
Natasha didn't wait for his wings to retract, darting out on to the balcony. "Kate, thank God!"
Kate reached for her, shaking with sobs, and Natasha didn't think twice, pulling her into a hug, letting the girl cry into her shoulder.
A quick check reassured Natasha that Kate was - for the most part, and physically at least - unhurt; a weight lifted from her chest and she shut her eyes, startled by the tears that burned there.
"It's alright," Natasha murmured, not even noticing the way her voice broke. "You're alright."
"Jemma needs to look at her ankle," Sam said.
Natasha nodded, shifting to take Kate's weight. "Come on, let's get inside."
"Dad's going to be mad," Kate muttered.
"No, he's not," Natasha said immediately, helping her inside. "He's going to be worried, not mad. Lucky, down!"
Lucky dropped back with a whine, circling them as Natasha took Kate to the couch. As soon as they were sat down, he jumped up beside them, resting his head on Kate's thigh.
Kate still hadn't let go, her knuckles white where they were gripping Natasha's combat gear.
"Honey, is it just your ankle that's hurt?"
Kate nodded into her shoulder.
"She's in shock," Sam said softly.
"Obviously," Jemma said tartly, kneeling down to check Kate's ankle. "Sorry, love; this is going to hurt a little bit."
Kate gave a little whimper as the doctor gently pressed against the bone, and Natasha tightened her hold, pressing an automatic kiss to her temple. "It's alright."
"Not broken," Jemma concluded. "Do you have ice in the freezer?"
"There's frozen peas," Natasha offered.
Jemma rolled her eyes. "Good enough, I suppose. It's just a sprain, thankfully. I'm going to recommend an ice pack, a blanket, some hot cocoa, and lots of hugs." She squeezed Kate's hand. "I know what happened is freaking you out, Kate, but thank you. You saved our lives today."
Natasha wasn't surprised when Kate didn't respond, still shivering in her arms. "Thank you, Jemma. Sam, can you …"
"I'll go and help with clean-up," Sam said. "You stay with her."
Natasha felt rather than heard Kate say, "I'm okay."
"Liar," Natasha said lightly. "It's alright. Come on." She helped Kate to her feet, and guided her into her bedroom. "Can you get out of your jeans or do I need to cut them off?"
That, at least, got a small laugh. "I don't know."
Natasha smiled. "Well, let's try and get them off the normal way first, yeah? Your ankle's going to keep swelling up; it's going to get very uncomfortable if you don't."
Kate nodded, finally letting go of her. "Thanks. Sorry, I'm being …"
"You are being perfectly normal," Natasha interrupted.
"I killed two people."
"I know," Natasha said. "Do you have some comfy clothes that you don't mind being stuck in?"
"Um, yeah, there was some sweats in the bottom drawer," Kate said, undoing her jeans.
Natasha pulled some out, trying to give her some privacy. "Do you need a hand?"
Kate made a little pained noise. "Yes, please."
When Natasha turned around, Kate was sitting down, one leg of her jeans very much stuck above her now-swollen ankle.
"You sure you don't want me to cut it," Natasha asked.
Kate nodded. "I like this pair."
"Fair enough. This will hurt a bit," Natasha warned, gently beginning to ease the denim around her ankle.
Kate whimpered and Lucky came trotting in, whining in harmony with her.
"It's okay," Kate said shakily, patting the mattress. "Come here."
Lucky jumped up beside her, and she hugged him, burying her face in his fur.
"Just a little bit more," Natasha murmured. "Nearly there."
Kate sucked in a breath. "Okay, cut it; please cut it!"
Natasha immediately stopped. "Alright, sweetheart, hang on." She pulled her knife from her belt, and carefully slid it under the denim. "Hold still." She cut along the seam just enough to be able to remove the jeans without hurting her.
"Thanks," Kate whispered.
Natasha stood up, handing her the sweatpants. "Are you okay if I go and grab you some ice for your ankle?"
Kate hesitated, but nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Natasha squeezed her hand. "I'll be right back, okay? Yell if you need me."
Leaving Kate with Lucky, she took the jeans to the kitchen and set them to one side, pulling out the frozen peas. She had been cut out of enough clothes after injuries that she had gotten pretty good at repairing them, so she would see what she could do about Kate's jeans over the next few days.
Jeans were a lot easier to replace than combat wear (and lingerie for that matter) but sometimes there was something emotionally symbolic about repairing clothes damaged on ops.
She just hadn't wanted Kate to figure that out yet.
Wrapping the peas in a tea towel and grabbing some Tylenol, she hesitated just a second longer.
She could hear Kate's sniffles, but she was fairly sure she was still more or less okay, so she took the time to quickly change out of her combat gear.
She was out of the room for less than a minute, but when she returned, Kate's eyes immediately found hers, filled with a kind of fear that had Natasha grasping her hand as soon as she was in reach.
"It's alright, sweetheart; it's all over."
"I'll feel better when JARVIS is back," Kate whispered. "And Dad."
"I know, Katie," Natasha murmured. "It won't be long."
As if on cue, just as Natasha finished wrapping Kate's ankle, the lights flickered.
"Good evening Kate, Ms Romanov," JARVIS greeted. "Everything is back online."
"It's good to hear your voice, JARVIS," Natasha said sincerely. "Do you have an update from the team?"
"They are due to land in the next few minutes," JARVIS answered. "They are not yet aware of the situation."
Natasha sat beside Kate, allowing her to burrow into her side. "Please tell Clint that Kate isn't badly hurt, but she is very shaken. If he makes it worse, I'll shoot him."
Clint was exhausted.
The whole trip had been a wild goose chase from the beginning, and everyone was tired and frustrated, but at least they had been able to sleep on the flight back.
Technically, he could have set the controls to autopilot, but he didn't really like doing that and taking his eye off the sky altogether, however good Tony's programming was.
He guided the jet into the hangar and they came to a halt, but even then he was so tired it took a moment for his eyes to register what he was seeing.
Was that Pepper … in an Iron Man suit?
New energy filled him and he jumped to his feet.
"Clint?" Peggy asked, startled as he burst out of the cockpit. "What's happened?"
Clint didn't answer, hitting the button to open the hatch. It opened slower than he would have liked, slowly enough for Pepper - and Sam, he now saw, to come around and meet them.
Behind him, Tony cursed. "Pep, please tell me you're wearing that because you found it and are trying to make a point."
"Sorry," Pepper said. "We had a situation; it's under control." She looked straight at Clint. "Kate's fine, but you're going to want to get to her."
Clint didn't answer, blood rushing in his ears as he sprinted for the stairwell, but when he reached the next floor, the door wouldn't open.
"Ms Romanov has asked me to pass on a message," JARVIS said, before he could just start shooting at it.
Clint gritted his teeth. "Make it quick; that's my daughter."
"Kate is not badly hurt, but she is very shaken. Ms Romanov will shoot you if you make it worse."
In another situation, Clint might laugh. Instead, he forced himself to take a deep breath.
Natasha was there.
Natasha was with her.
And of course she was, because Pepper wouldn't have left Kate alone.
A shaken Kate was an insecure Kate, and if he didn't calm down, she would take it as anger at her, and that wouldn't do.
"Okay, I hear you," he said. "Let me through please."
JARVIS opened the stairwell door, and also the door to his apartment.
It appeared to be empty, but … his spare bow and quiver were propped against the couch, and they should have been up in Tony's workshop, so that worried him.
Clint shed his own weapons, dropping them somewhat carelessly to the ground, as his eyes darted around the room, but there was nothing else out of place with the exception of a pair of jeans sitting on the kitchen table. "Nat?"
"We're in here."
Clint raised an eyebrow, but hurried to Kate's bedroom.
Natasha was sat up against the headboard, Kate's head pillowed in her lap.
Kate's right leg was propped up on a pile of hoodies, her ankle wrapped in a tea towel and what he suspected to be frozen peas; Lucky was curled up right next to her foot, like he knew that was the part of her that was hurting.
Clint's gaze swept over both of them, silently checking for any other injuries, relaxing further when he saw none. "Hey, there's my girls."
Natasha rolled her eyes, kindly not mentioning the way his voice cracked on the words. "Get over here."
Clint kicked his shoes off and came to sit on Kate's other side, wrapping one arm around Natasha and grasping Kate's hand with the other.
"Dad?"
"I'm here, sweetheart," Clint murmured. "You're alright."
Tears pooled in her eyes as she looked up at him. "I'm so sorry."
Bewildered, Clint looked at Natasha, who shrugged. "Katie, what are you apologising for?"
"Did Pepper tell you what happened?" Natasha asked softly.
"All I heard was 'Kate's fine, but'," Clint admitted. "JARVIS passed on your message. I'm calm. What happened?"
Kate sniffled. "I killed two people."
Clint's heart sank. "Oh, Katie … I'm so sorry." He wanted to hug her, to wrap her up and protect her from everything he knew was racing through her mind right now, but he couldn't - to move her would hurt her ankle even more. He settled for squeezing her hand, bending to kiss her forehead. "You don't need to apologise for that, honey. What happened?"
"I wasn't trying to," Kate said. "Okay, I was trying to, but that wasn't the plan, I swear."
"Start from beginning," Natasha said gently, and thank God one of them could apparently still think clearly.
"I was with Pepper," Kate whispered. "We realised that JARVIS was down and Pepper checked security and saw HYDRA so we went up to the labs."
"Smart move," Natasha said. "They're on a separate system."
"That's what Pepper said," Kate said. "JARVIS still wasn't running fully though, so Pepper went to get the suit, and told me to arm myself and find somewhere to hide."
"They tried to hack the systems," Natasha said, for Clint's benefit. "JARVIS had to put most of his processes into stopping that. Sam and I were following up a lead in New Jersey."
"Dead end?" Clint guessed.
Natasha nodded. "My guess is that we all got false intel today."
Of course they did.
"Ward told Peggy that he hadn't heard anything about the base we were going out to," Clint said. "Make sense, if it never really existed. What did you do, Katie?"
"Well, I didn't know how high up they'd managed to get," Kate said, "so I didn't want to come back here and hide in the safe room, so I went to Tony's lab and got your spare bow and quiver."
"Makes sense," Clint said, feeling her relax a little when he did.
"I wasn't sure where to hide," Kate continued, "so I went to the roof. There's nothing up there, so I figured maybe they wouldn't bother."
So far, so good - Clint would have told her to hide in one of the safe rooms, but then he wasn't sure Kate knew where the safe rooms were in the labs.
He would need to change that.
"But then I got to the roof, and there's nowhere to hide if they did go up there, and I thought I could hear people on the stairs, and …" Kate faltered. "I was scared."
"I know, malen'kiy yastreb," Natasha murmured, stroking her hair. "I'm not surprised. How'd you get to the next roof over?"
Kate sighed. "Used a zip-line arrow. I wasn't looking for a nest, Dad, I swear; I just wanted to get out of here."
"Oh, Katie-Kate, I know that," Clint said. "It's that what you're worrying about?"
Kate was quiet for a few seconds. "I mean, there wasn't a uniform this time."
Despite the situation, Clint couldn't help chuckling. "Honestly, Kate, even if you had decided to try and help, I wouldn't be upset."
"You wouldn't?" Kate and Natasha asked together, Kate sounding surprised, Natasha dubious.
Clint rolled his eyes. "Katie, you're my daughter. I wouldn't be surprised if you did that. I'd be frustrated that you put yourself in danger, but I'd be a hypocrite if I was mad about it."
"Because you've never been a hypocrite," Natasha said dryly.
Clint gave her a wounded look, but Kate let out a giggle, so he let it pass. "So you used the zip-line. Is that when you hurt your ankle? I've never taught you how to land."
Kate nodded. "Jemma says it's just a sprain. I was going to just wait there until you got back, but I could see into the medical floor, and he had a huge gun, and I don't think Jemma was armed."
"She was," Natasha said, "but she's a terrible shot. You saved their lives, Kate."
"They didn't stop," Kate whispered, her voice trembling. "I shot the first one in the throat and he dropped, but he just kept twitching, and then there was another one, and I had to do it again, and he didn't stop either."
"It's okay," Natasha said, apparently aware that Clint was struggling. "That's normal; it doesn't mean they felt anything. Sometimes the nervous system takes a while to catch up."
"It's not nice," Clint added, finally finding his voice. "But it really doesn't mean anything, Kate."
"You never wanted me to do that," Kate whispered.
Clint sighed. "No, Katie, I didn't. But that doesn't mean I'm not proud of you."
"I didn't have a choice."
"Yes, you did," Clint said gently. "Inaction is always a choice, Kate. You just feel like it wasn't because you don't have it in you. I'm proud of you for that."
"They were excellent shots," Natasha said. "Both of them."
"You took them out with one shot each?" Clint asked.
Kate nodded, looking up at him with some trepidation.
Clint managed a smile, bending to kiss her forehead again. "That's my girl."
Kate stared at him for a minute. "Is this going to make sense tomorrow morning?"
"Probably not," Natasha said. "We're assassins. We can both appreciate a job well done, even if we wish it wasn't you that had to do it."
"You - eah, she's right," Clint said, clearing his throat midway through.
Natasha gave him a bit of an odd look over Kate's head, but he pretended he didn't see it. No way was he going to admit that he had been about to refer to her as Kate's mother.
Kate sighed, shifting her gaze to Natasha. "Is your leg going dead?"
"No, malen'kiy yastreb," Natasha murmured. "You're alright."
"What does that mean?" Kate asked drowsily - Natasha was still stroking her hair and apparently it had the same sleep-inducing effect on Kate as it did on him.
"Little Hawk," Natasha answered affectionately. "You are definitely your father's daughter."
