She was falling. No. Plummeting to her certain death.

"Kid!" She could hear Barton scream for her

But she wasn't scared, she wasn't terrified, no she actually felt….peaceful. Everything in her life had gone to shit recently.

Sure finding Hawkeye's ronin suit was cool up until the bad guys started going after her.

How was she supposed to know she'd nearly die, multiple times, thanks to a ninja suit that has far too little purple?

Then add onto the fact that her mom was getting married to a man she didn't really like, but then found out she wrongfully misjudged him, so that sucks, but then found out her mom is a bad person and so was the dad she loved?

What a great way to start the new year huh?

Trauma and probably googling how much a therapist is in NYC if she survives this fall.

Which was unlikely.

You'd have to be the hulk to survive falling off the Harrison center, but I mean hey! Maybe she'll magically get powers on the way down.

Also unlikely. A plan. We need a plan.

The tree? It's the best thing to hopefully slow her descent into becoming a human pancake and hopefully soften the very painful blow her body is about to receive.

Only one way to find out.

Kate takes a deep breath and guides her body to aim straight for the tree.

Have you ever fallen down a massive 30+ foot tree and hit nearly every branch on the way down? No? Well it's fucking painful.

Kate could feel every branch whipping her face open like she got into a knife fight with Freddy Krueger, suit and skin being torn open as she stupidly tried to wrap her arms around the tree's trunk to stay perpendicular with it as the tree snapped out of place and started rapidly falling towards the ice rink, and finally her body making all sorts of sounds that said 'you're gonna need more than spiderman bandaids to fix this buddy'.

Boom

The tree collapsed onto the rink with a loud crash and so did Kate.

Luckily she was smart enough to try landing on her left side so if she needed to she could still shoot with her right…..but holy fuck the cracking of her left shoulder potentially exploding into fifty trillion tiny pieces…was not fun to both hear and feel.

The amount of pain that surged through her body had her screaming in a way she was absolutely sure she had never done before.

A large yelp came out of her mouth as she forced her body up and off the floor.

Her body was sore, bruised, bloodied, and likely broken.

Well at least no one can tell her she didn't at least TRY being a hero, right?

A small part of her honestly thought that the worst part was that her bow got damaged. Completely snapped in half upon impact with the ice rink.

Shit.

Bad guys were coming.

How to hold them off until Clint…. hopefully….comes to save her?

"Hawkeye!" A voice called out from behind her

It was a young teen carrying a bow, she's seen him before in papers for the local high school's archery team.

"Take my bow!" He slides his bow and arrows to her before taking off.

Thank you kid, thank you.

It wasn't as good as her bow, in her opinion, but it would do. If she lives to see tomorrow she'll consider signing it and hand returning it to the kid as a thank you. But for now. She had to focus on the fight.

"You're surrounded Hawkeye Junior, you're not making it out alive you know."

Their leader was seriously annoying

"Ya know, I really feel bad for whatever girl chooses to be in a relationship with you!"

His face immediately scrunches up in anger, gotcha bitch.

She wasn't sure what got her through the fight. What allowed her mind to persevere through the pain, what overcame her normal sense of doubt and fear and allowed her to come out on top as not just the winner but survivor. But she's sure as hell grateful for whatever that was.

Hey maybe 2025 won't be so bad if she has more if that.

What sucked ass was when the adrenaline started to wear off as she made her way to what sounded like Clint and Yelena arguing with each other. Well….at least that meant Clint was alive for now. Her body ached terribly and, while she's no doctor, she was pretty sure that your vision shouldn't be going in and out like it currently was.

Luckily just on the other side of the tree was Clint and Yelena.

Yelena had walked off into an alleyway and Clint had collapsed onto his knees.

Kate clumsily stumbled up to the older man "If it's any consolation…you're still pretty cool for being a regular guy and fighting aliens."

Clint gave a short chuckle and looked up at Kate with a small smile "that has nothing to do with anything, but I appreciate it kid."

Kate extends her arm the best she can to help him up but Clint ignores her attempts and gets up himself. "Kid you look like you lost a fight against Wolverine…..don't over do it."

Kate hums in agreement but also…."well I mean if I come out of a fight against Wolverine and I'm only this badly damaged….then you'd think I actually won the fight ya know?"

Clint looks at her in disbelief and shakes his head "I don't know if I'll ever stop wondering what's wrong up there for you to be like this kid."

Kate scoffs in fake offense "I'm not wrong! With his claws statistically, and scientifically might I add, that if I come out of a fight against THE Wolverine, then honestly I think I deserve brownie points for being a badass!"

Clint just starts laughing at her while guiding her off of the ice rink. Kate laughs too.

Of course, being such a dad, Clint forces Kate to stay at the crime scene and receive medical attention by the paramedics even though she 100% doesn't need it…and all she really needs is a good bath and some pizza and boom. Hawkeye is back in business.

But both the paramedic and Clint mutter something about how 'that's now how the body works', so fine. Poke and pride away.

It's not like anything worse can happen tonight, right?