This is part of a larger universe that starts with "On the Run Together." Reading order is on my profile :)

Chapter 1: "The New Girl"

Seventh grade, Clint was pretty sure, was specifically designed to be the worst year of any person's life.

He'd spent the last few months of sixth grade diving into his classes, trying to get better and trying to honestly keep his head down. It felt like he'd gone from one crisis to the next with his family, and he almost hoped, for some reason, that if he was just a normal student, then he'd avoid yet another kidnapping.

It was totally irrational, but… he actually did have a relatively quiet spring and summer. There were a few attacks on the X-Men, but he was perfectly safe at school, and he was perfectly safe at Avengers Tower, too, spending the summer hanging out with his dad and learning more self-defense, teaching Billy and Tommy about the world, and looking out for his siblings.

He knew that, more than likely, the quiet period was because all the adults were working their tails off to keep him and the others safe because they'd had such a run of bad luck. And he also knew that Sinister was dead and the bad guys were trying to do their own regrouping after tangling with his amazing and overprotective family. But still, he felt so weirdly normal that he leaned into it a little bit.

And then, seventh grade happened.

He was only a few weeks into the school year, and he was pretty sure he hated this. He was in a class with a bunch of new kids, because he was starting to get old enough that new students were his age — or sometimes even younger. And everyone was posturing in ways that put Barney to shame, which was kind of impressive (even if Barney seemed to have relaxed lately, probably because he was old enough that he was going to get his driver's license when he came home for the winter).

And Clint had sworn he wouldn't be like Barney. He'd made fun of his brother to no end for how much he'd peacocked when he was a preteen.

But… there was this new girl…

This was nothing like the kiddie crush he had on Wanda when he was little. This new girl was his age. She was super cute, with dyed-pink hair that matched her glowing pink eyes. He could never tell if she was looking right at him, which made it hard for him to get away with stealing glimpses her way, but a few times, he had seen a smile at the corner of her mouth, so he thought he probably wasn't being as sneaky as he'd hoped he was being.

His mom was going to give him such a hard time.

She was in his math class with Scott and his science class with Hank, but they weren't in the same self-defense class. And that was a crying shame, because he was good at that, and he found himself daydreaming about letting her catch him doing something heroic.

And he felt bad about that, not because he didn't want to peacock but because he had finally managed to get some respect from the adults because of how much he had worked to let go of his countdown to being thirteen and to stop trying to go faster than he was actually ready to go. And now, all he could think about was showing off in a uniform with x's on it.

It was embarrassing how much he was thinking about that lately.

And that would have been manageable, too, if he'd managed to keep his looks to himself. But while he had been focused on trying not to alert the new girl to the fact that he kept looking her way, he hadn't been looking out for anyone else.

And Katie was becoming just as much of a Hawkeye as he was.

"Clint has a crush!" Katie sang out — loudly — when everyone was enjoying the sunshine and most of the students were grabbing lunch out on the grounds.

Clint had been watching the new girl talk with Jean about her classes, but as soon as Katie made her declaration, he jolted to his feet, blushing furiously as Katie cackled with both hands over her mouth.

"Katie!"

She giggled and danced in place for a second before she ducked out of his grasp and took off running, giggling even more when he stumbled to avoid smooshing his own lunch to rush after her. "I'm not wrong!" she called over her shoulder.

"Katie!" he shouted again, rushing to overtake her before he snatched her up and took her to the ground, already tickling her before they hit the grass.

"No fair, no fair!" Katie said, still cackling as they wrestled.

"No fair?" he repeated — and doubled down on tickling her. "No fair? You're the one trying to embarrass me!"

Katie was gasping and nearly crying with laughter by the time Clint finally let her up, and only because he knew she needed to breathe. She kept giggling every once in a while, sucking in a breath before she'd start all over again, though it was starting to die down at last.

"It's my job," she said through her giggles. "It's my job as your little sister to bug you."

"Says who?"

"Says Mom, and she was a little sister," Katie insisted. "She says it's my job."

"It's not your job," Clint said, rolling his eyes. "That's just something she says when she's trying to be funny."

"Mom doesn't have to try to be funny. She just is," Kate said, rolling her eyes right back at him and then sticking her tongue out.

"Okay, you're not wrong, but still," Clint said.

"So I'm right!" Katie cackled instantly and practically skipped away from him. "Bye, Clint! Try not to get in trouble!" she called over her shoulder.

Clint felt his face turn bright red once again, but before he could come up with anything to say in response, Katie was already dancing away, clearly pleased with herself and her little-sister mission to throw all his secrets out there in the open.

"Sisters are the worst," he muttered under his breath, kicking at a bit of grass before, sighing heavily, he went back to his stuff.

He tried not to look at everyone as he headed back inside. He knew eyes were on him because his parents were X-Men, so he doubted that anyone had missed what had happened with Katie. And he was too observant not to know immediately how people were reacting to it all. And if he was honest with himself, he really didn't want that hanging over him.

He kept his head down and got through his classes without drawing attention, but when his last class of the day was with his dad, he knew he wasn't going to make a clean getaway when he saw the look his dad shot him as soon as he caught his scent.

So, he tried to scoot out of class without being noticed. And that would have worked if James hadn't come to find Logan, since he knew it was the last class and wanted some time with his dad… and Clint, once he saw his big brother.

"Hey, buddy," Clint said, catching James as the little guy practically barrelled into him.

"Hey," James parroted back to him, grinning gleefully. He loved to copy Clint, and he loved that they were buddies. And he was getting more and more words every day — usually ones that he learned from his older siblings or from the Summers kids.

"Did you have a good day?" he asked, even as the rest of Logan's class filed out, slipping around him as his toddler brother climbed into his lap and made himself comfortable.

James nodded. "Uh-huh!" He unclenched his fist and showed Clint the little toy magnet he had clenched in his fist.

"Yeah, that's right. Did you bring this just for me?" Clint asked, grinning in spite of his earlier bad mood.

"Uh-huh."

"That's really, really nice," Clint said earnestly as he let James practically shove the toy into his face. He didn't want to let go of it, but he had to make sure that Clint saw his little treasure up close and personal.

And, really, it was hard to be upset about having little siblings when his baby brother was being that cute.

Clint was grinning as James climbed into Logan's lap, looking for affection, so when he met Logan's gaze and saw the unreadable expression there, he didn't feel as embarrassed as he probably would have when he realized that Logan probably knew exactly why he was acting so weird lately.

He loved his parents, but there were some drawbacks to having a mom and dad who could tell so much more with scent than he actually wanted them to know.

Still, he was able to slip through easily enough — James was a good barrier, though he suspected Logan had just let him know he knew but wasn't interested in having a sit-down talk — and while he knew better than to go anywhere Katie was while he was still mad at his little sister, he was feeling brave enough to see if he could slip into the rest of the student body and maybe — maybe — see if he could find the new girl again.

Gail, he was pretty sure her name was. Or else she had wind powers and her friends called her "Gale" because everyone in the school already had their X-Men names picked out, regardless of how likely they were to actually be on the team.

He nosed down the hallway, not sure if he wanted to find her or not, because he really didn't have a plan other than "find out her name" and then…. He had no idea what happened next, but that was a good start, right? Knowing her name?

I can't believe it, but I think I actually want to ask Barney for advice here, Clint said — and then immediately drew a hand down his face. He really had it bad if he was considering going to Barney to ask how to win over a girl.

He'd start with learning her name, and if he felt like he had a chance, then he could talk to Barney about what to do next. Not before.

Yeah, that was probably the right move.

Clint could hear a lot of the other kids his age in one of the rec rooms, so he headed there first after dropping his bag off in his room. A couple guys had started up a competitive game of darts, and usually, he would have loved to smoke them. But in the moment, all he could think was that it would be more fun if someone saw him being amazing.

A few kids had a racing game going — and several more were watching them and egging them on. There was a pool game going, too — another opportunity for Clint to show off if Gail was around.

And luckily for him, she was playing with another girl in their class.

Or, well, maybe that wasn't lucky for him. He didn't want to butt into their game, and he definitely didn't want to make her feel bad if he won.

And, yeah, he might have liked the girl, but he also wasn't going to lose. First of all, that was dumb. And second of all, how would it look when she eventually realized that he was amazing at games like that — games where he had to aim?

No, he had to figure out a better way to get her attention.

Why was this suddenly so hard? He'd never had a problem talking to people before. It had always been easy for him to make friends. But here he was, frozen not far from the doorway, trying to figure out how to learn a girl's name.

This is ridiculous, he berated himself, his own frustration propelling him forward as soon as he formed the thought.

"Hey, can I play winner?" Clint called out as he reached the pool table — before he could overthink his way into not going over there.

Both of the girls looked up at Clint's approach, and Gail's friend giggled and nudged Gail, who turned bright pink and clutched her pool stick harder before she squeaked out a high-pitched, "Yeah, sure."

For some reason, when Clint realized that Gail was blushing every time she looked his way, he felt his face getting redder too. And that just created a vicious cycle of blushing that lasted all the way through Gail's pool game with her friend.

Seriously, this shouldn't be this hard, he thought to himself.

Maybe it was just harder to stop blushing when Gail's friend was also there, bearing witness to both of them turning bright red around each other. And it was even worse when she seemed to be trying to lose the game so that Gail would be the one to play with Clint as the winner.

Eventually, Gail's friend scratched a shot, and Gail won, but by that point, both of them were so pink that they couldn't form words around each other.

"Have fun, Gail," Gail's friend said pointedly, and Gail looked just as mortified as Clint felt — though at least now Clint knew for sure that was her name. Or nickname. It was something he could call her, anyway.

Gail's friend left, and then, the two of them were standing around a pool table, blushing, not at all communicating, and too aware that they'd been set up to move past it.

Finally, Clint gestured toward the pool table, tried to say something, and then gave up on talking and simply started to set up the game, aware out of the corner of his gaze that Gail was watching him.

"Do you, um, do you want me to break?" he asked, already mentally berating himself because he had sounded so much smoother in his head.

"Oh. Okay. Sure," Gail said.

Yeah, this was going great.

Thankfully, they weren't just trying to have a conversation. They had something that they could use as a distraction, a reason to keep moving. And Clint got to show off once she took her first shot — though he was also trying to figure out whether or not to hold back. Would she be impressed if he sank them all quickly or would she be annoyed that he hadn't let her play?

He kept glancing her way, but he couldn't tell if he was doing it right. She looked impressed, but she was also gripping her pool stick hard and seemed to be really trying to sink her shots, too. Maybe she wanted to impress him back?

They played a short game, mostly keeping their conversations about the shots they were making, though Clint could see her stealing glances his way and kept stealing a few of his own. It was a weird dance, and he didn't know if he liked it.

And then, at the end of the game, he bounced his weight from one foot to another, his stomach churning with nerves before he blurted out. "So… do you want to hang out sometime?"

She turned bright red but nodded wordlessly a few times before practically whispering, "Yes, please."

"Okay. Cool." He wasn't sure what to do now. Maybe he should have asked Barney for advice.

Thankfully, she didn't seem to know what to do either. And even though he was blushing up a storm, it did kind of help that they were both embarrassed into silence.

No one had told him dating was going to be this hard.