Clint still remembered the night he first met Arianna Hart. She was just an eighteen year old girl, a kid really in his eyes, and when he'd first gotten the protection detail he hadn't been too happy. He didn't relish the idea of basically stalking a kid and observing her from afar to see what her potential would be. That should've been Phil's job.
Unfortunately, in the years since Phil had first recruited Clint, the older man had been promoted – several times – and it was no longer his job. Hence, it had been passed down to the 'next-in-line' as Nat had jokingly called him, resulting in Clint watching the slight girl as she went about her daily routines. He'd sighed, resigning himself to the dull job and settled into his role without high expectation.
But Clint was proven wrong. He realized almost immediately that this girl was not dull, nor was her life routine. He watched her nurse a sickly mother, sneak off to various jobs, including a late night shift at the local bar a few streets down from her apartment, and try to cram for a college education in the local library so that she wouldn't disturb her mother's sleep. And that was day one.
It was not long after that, that Clint witnessed a glimpse of her physical skills. There had been no doubt after the first day that she was indeed a genius as he watched her work in a car repair shop with ease and spotted her studying advanced physics. But brains were only one aspect of a job at SHIELD, especially the one Fury was contemplating for this girl, and so Clint had been waiting for a sign that she could be trained for more.
He hadn't had to wait long - late on the second day, or rather very early into the third day, he watched as she was assaulted by a drunk bar patron as she was leaving work. The man, clumsy on his feet and so drunk he could barely speak straight, had launched himself at Arianna in an attempt to push her against the back alley wall.
Clint had been ready to intervene – perhaps posing as a nearby passerby – when the slight girl he'd been watching neatly caught the man's arms, hooked her leg through his, and spun him over her side so that he went crashing to the ground. She took the moment that the man was lying in a dazed pile to duck back inside the bar before returning minutes later with her boss.
The pudgy but well-meaning man had his bar security detain Arianna's would-be assailant before calling the cops while Arianna hurried home to squeeze in some time to study before she had to sleep. Clint followed her, feeling rather impressed by what he was finding in the pretty little girl who really wasn't all she seemed at first glance.
Her skills were nowhere near as impressive as Natasha's had been when he'd first encountered the Russian assassin, and yet it was in some ways more impressive. Nat had been in arguably one of the best training systems, and while she was excellent even by Red Room standards, she had been exactly what Clint had been prepared for. This girl before him, this Arianna Hart, was untrained and wouldn't hold a candle against Nat in a fight yet her raw talent was clear to anyone who cared to watch.
His decision made, he returned to his hideout and made the call to Phil.
Of course, that had to be when the CIA's targets chose to place a hit on her. The terrorist group they'd been tracking – and whose code Arianna had helpfully decoded – had finally worked out who was responsible for their failed plans and had sent an assassin to take the girl out. Luckily for her, and unfortunately for the assassin, Hawkeye had arrived- with Phil in tow.
He saw the danger immediately, Phil noting it almost a second after the archer had, and the two quickly dispersed to deal with the unexpected situation. Clint noted, with some surprise although he had also expected as much, that Arianna seemed to know something was wrong as she scanned the dark alleyway she was standing in, the exact spot where she had been assaulted two days before.
But there was no way she was adequately prepared to deal with her current situation, and Clint ran for her as she stood before the backdoor to the pub she worked at. He tackled her swiftly just as the assassin hiding in the far shadows fired a shot.
Clint covered her mouth quickly – they really didn't need others to become involved – and for the briefest moments his eyes met hers. Her wide hazel eyes showed shock and confusion, and Clint noted in the nanosecond that they stared at each other that there was indeed an intelligent gleam in her eyes, an intelligence that showed now as she appraised him in silence as he did her.
And then the moment passed and Clint was back on his feet as he drew an arrow and fired it at the assassin. He ducked back down as he noted from the faint sound of impact that the arrow had hit the surprised man's shoulder, rendering his gun arm useless but not killing him. He swiftly drew another arrow as he stood back up, firing once more and he was satisfied to see in the faint movement in the darkness that the arrow had found its mark. As his arrows always did.
He quickly moved to check the fallen body, just to make sure the assassin really was dead and not faking, before returning to stand before Arianna Hart. The girl had been watching him warily, and he was again a little surprised by her presence of mind. Since her initial reaction to scream, she had made no sound, and Clint also noted that Arianna was taking the fact that someone had just been killed before her eyes, extremely well.
The girl had gotten slowly to her feet, and he saw her eyes flickering around her surroundings quickly before coming back to meet his. He could see fear, wariness, and a hint of curiosity in her eyes as she stared at him, when she suddenly tensed. Clint had to say, he was impressed- it was rare for people to realize when a SHIELD agent came near.
"No need to worry." Phil had chuckled as he walked up to them. "We're safe… well, safer."
Clint suppressed a snort, keeping his face neutral as he was trained to be. The night had ended on a positive note after that, both men getting gradually more impressed with the girl before them. She was no pushover and clearly intelligent in not just the mind – cough, Tony Stark – but in social interactions. Both incredibly valuable skills for any agent.
He also detected a hint of the heart, the righteous essence, in this girl that he knew Phil always looked for. She kept it hidden, constantly on her guard as she eyed them skeptically and cautiously, but Clint was good at seeing what others could not.
And her expression as she'd said: "I'm in."
Clint had seen something akin to Arianna's spirit in Nat – although, admittedly, the Russian had been far more deadly – and he knew in his gut that the girl before him was one in a million. Maybe one in a billion.
It was why he had stood adamantly with Phil when DELTA's handler had argued for Arianna to be trained with Clint and Natasha in addition to whatever training she would do as a regular SHIELD recruit. He could see potential and he knew that under the right guidance she would easily become one of their best. But more than that, he was confident she would one day become more than just an agent.
To say Natasha had been wary of the new recruit was an understatement. To say she was unhappy with the decision was an even greater understatement. It was only her trust in Phil and Clint that kept the Russian's mouth shut when Arianna had come in uncertainly on that fateful first day.
The feeling disappeared quickly on the redhead's side, though her continual cold demeanour kept the two women at a distance from each other. It was actually sometimes amusing, though Clint often felt frustrated with the way the pair seemed to dance around each other. He would never forget the look on Arianna's face that day she had first pinned Nat down.
He'd teased Nat relentlessly about it (payback for how she'd teased him after Arianna managed to pin him down about two months earlier) but he was happy to see the two seemed to tentatively be making progress in getting to know one another. Of course, it was also around this time that they'd discovered Arianna's talent with knives.
Clint would never tell her, but he had been the proudest when the letter bearing Arianna's acceptance into MIT arrived. Because in the back of his mind, there was always the small, niggling guilt in having had one of the largest parts in turning an innocent girl into a killing machine. So seeing some semblance of normality, and feeling the pride swelling in his chest because of an incredible achievement that had only been possible with Arianna's intelligence and SHIELD's financial backing, made him smile wider than he had in all the time that Arianna had been in SHIELD.
He also remembered the day when Arianna reached clearance level 5, and the first time he'd taken her out on a mission. He could still remember when she'd excelled far beyond what he or Phil had thought, though not hoped.
He also remembered as she ducked to avoid, a grenade thrown towards her head letting it go off and setting a fire on one side of the factory before she threw a grenade of her own. It had collided with a bullet one of the guards they had been fighting shot, causing an explosion that had leveled all the pillars on one side. They had all paused for a fraction of a second before Clint yelled: "Out!"
He and Arianna ran, both efficiently taking out all their remaining opponents as they did. The factory walls had groaned before shaking as the roof began to collapse on the side Arianna had managed to break down, and the pair had barely managed to get out before the entire factory had collapsed before it blew up from all the illegal chemicals their targets had been cultivating. Arianna had given Clint a sheepish look, but far from being angry he'd been completely amused, laughing at her so hard tears formed in his eyes.
Needless to say, the pair had been almost inseparable after that, almost as inseparable as Clint and Nat had been since she had been brought in. And a few months later, it turned out to be a very good thing they were.
Arianna's first year anniversary at SHIELD was without a doubt one of the worst days any member of STRIKE team DELTA had had at SHIELD. It had started out as a simple mission in Budapest, or as simple as international trade secret missions got. But it had quickly gone up in flames when their target was shot by an assailant that none of them had seen in time.
Clint had been captured for a good majority of that disaster of the mission after that, and he came out when Nat rescued him to find Arianna had been shot in the stomach while causing a diversion for their escape. In fact, it was a wonder to them all even for years after as to how they had all managed to make it out of that hell alive.
There had been two upsides to the mission though. Clint had found, to immense surprise and satisfaction, that Arianna and Nat had apparently bonded over his capture and the two had finally put aside all feelings of unease with one another. When Arianna woke up and Clint found them calling each other by first name – albeit a little awkwardly, neither used to calling the other in such a familiar manner – he was sure his face was going to split he was grinning so widely.
The second upside had something to do with an idea he had been planning for a while, but hadn't had quite the opportunity to do. Something that hadn't turned out quite the way he'd expected but ultimately ended for the better.
After Budapest, and needing some much needed rest and a place to lie low, Clint made the decision to introduce Arianna to his family.
To say she'd been surprised was an understatement. To say she was hurt that he hadn't told her sooner was expected. But Clint had seen something akin to worry flash through her eyes before it was gone as she gingerly greeted Laura before playing with Cooper.
Nat pointed out Arianna was probably having trouble splitting the image of the close relationship the Russian and the archer had, which Clint understood. He figured it would be how most people would react. But he was surprised when Nat revealed she suspected Arianna would also suddenly feel like an outsider to Clint's life and that it was most likely what was troubling her - because it was what had troubled Nat when Clint had first introduced her to Laura.
This surprised him, both that Arianna might feel as though she weren't welcome when he clearly meant for her to be by including her in his secret, and that Nat would admit to her feelings. It touched him in a way, that Nat was now willing to make herself vulnerable in order to help Arianna. And that Nat had grown enough to speak up about her feelings…
Clint did the only thing he could. He called both his DELTA girls over, Nat giving him a suspicious look while Arianna walked over a little uncertainly. He ignored both their looks of surprise as he leant in and hugged them both close to him, feeling their initial hesitation.
Arianna, of course, was the first to react as she carefully returned the hug before tightening her grip and burying her head into his chest. Clint had kept his eyes on Nat as he patted Arianna's back, and eventually the redhead caved. Her green-blue eyes lowered and she slowly wrapped her arm around him as she lay her head on his other side. The trio stood there for a moment, each finding and giving their comfort as they realized that nothing between them had changed.
Clint still had the picture of that moment, tucked in with his picture of Laura and his kids in his wallet. It should have disturbed the three agents how Laura had managed to snap the picture without any of them noticing, but then again she was Hawkeye's wife. Clint also knew that Nat had a secret copy in her bedside table – underneath her gun – and Arianna had a copy at the bottom of her chest of drawers. How he knew, he could never explain- he just did. They were family.
So it stood to reason that he was the first, along with Nat, to realize when Arianna had first fallen in love. When Arianna fell for Captain America.
Clint knew the look in Steve's eye- he'd seen it many times before. Clint would be a fool not to notice how attractive both his DELTA teammates were, and they'd used that to their advantage on more than one occasion. He'd seen interest, he'd seen lust, he'd even seen adoration in the eyes of the many men who had looked at his two girls.
But there were very few instances when Clint had seen genuine love and care in the eyes of any person, let alone one looking at his girls. He could count on one hand how many people looked at Arianna or Nat that way, and one had recently – his heart had clenched painfully – passed away. It made him watch Steve carefully in the aftermath of the battle of New York, and it had soon become apparent to him, and most likely the entire team if not at least Nat, that Steve was starting to feel more than a platonic friendship for his 'sister'.
But on that fateful day, before he'd returned home for the first time in many months, he had also seen a look he'd never seen on Arianna's face. He saw it for the briefest moment in the flash of a smile she'd given Steve, that day in May of 2012 when they'd seen Thor and Loki off.
It wasn't quite love, not yet, but both he and Nat had seen in that moment that it would lead there if the pair were given the right nudge. And he had no doubt that they would - Fury had seen to it when he made them partners in work.
Clint could still remember Nat's husky voice as she murmured to him, with a hint of amusement and a hint of sadness: "Our little sister's growing up."
He'd grinned, agreeing with her, as he watched Arianna interact briefly with Steve before they'd all parted ways. His sister, for all intents and purposes, had grown even more than since he'd first met Arianna. And Clint wasn't sure how he felt about that.
He loved her as any brother, so he felt naturally jealous and critical of any man who would dare to catch her eye. But he also felt joy that she was finally peeking out the closed door of her heart, daring to peer over the wall she had built, and letting someone else into her world. He felt relief that it was Captain America that had caught her attention, because at the very least he knew he could trust the man Phil had admired so greatly. Trust that Steve wouldn't hurt his sister and that he would be there to pull her when she tried to push away in her stubborn and stupid way.
But there was also the sense of loss, a feeling that there would be a distance he had never before felt. He remembered how Arianna had struggled briefly to come to terms with the fact that he was married with a kid and kept that from her, and finally understood a little better what she must've felt. The feeling that he was being ridiculous but still unable to shake the fear that things would change. That he would lose someone he called family.
"What are you thinking about?"
Clint was pulled from his thoughts as Laura looked at him questioningly, rocking baby Nathaniel in her arms as the baby gurgled happily. Clint saw her glance down at the card in his hands, watched the way her face softened and her warm brown eyes moved back to meet his blue ones.
Laura sat down beside him on the bed, gently adjusting Nathaniel so that she could lean against Clint, wrapping her free arm around his waist and hugging him comfortingly.
"She's still going to be your 'sister'." Laura murmured and Clint answered automatically, even as his arms moved to pull Laura a little closer: "I know."
Laura smiled, brushing her hand soothingly along Clint's back as she looked down at the card still in his hand.
"Looks like our girl's all grown up." She commented and Clint raised a brow.
"'Our' girl?" He joked, and Laura smiled.
"Yes, our girl." She said before she laughed a little. "Goodness, it seems like yesterday she was here, a young girl and looking so bewildered when you introduced us. I'll never forget that look of betrayal she shot at you before she quickly shifted her expression into polite indifference."
Clint cracked a smile and Laura kissed his cheek gently.
"She'll be all right." Laura murmured, and Clint joked lightly: "'Course she will. I didn't raise her to be otherwise."
"Careful Nat doesn't hear you." Laura laughed and Clint smiled as he finally placed the wedding invitation back down on the coffee table before him, hugging Laura to him as he stared at the words on the front with a mix of happiness and sorrow.
'Arianna Hart and Captain Steven Grant Rogers'
*A/N I really wanted to write this, because I was feeling a little regret that Arianna's bond with Clint wasn't able to be expressed as well as I wanted in the middle of the chaos that was Captain's Hart and Soul.