#clint question

💛 for jessica’s honest opinion of 

pietro:

Sometimes, it feels like all she has are bad memories. It’s too cold to go out tonight, with her jacket ruined, so she’s stuck pacing inside her apartment, walking in circles among the chaos. Stuck with her own thoughts, going back and forth, bottle tapping against her leg as she walks. 

“I hate you,” she calls to the folder laying open on her desk. She has a folder on him, labeled ‘Asshole Twin One.’ (Above that, is a series of thick, heavy, sloppy lines, crossing out the name Pietro.) On nights like this, when sleep is a goddamn joke and she feels like torturing herself, she pulls it out. His photo is lying on top, staring at her across the room. “I really fucking do,” she slurs to it, but even now, the words ring hollow.

Because sometimes, she realizes she has good memories too – or at least ones that don’t hurt as much. Like meeting him in an alleyway, watching him twitch at the mention of crowds, laughing with him, talking about nothing.

Or the feel of his arms, slowly reaching for her while she shook and cried, for Luke, for Reva, for Kilgrave, for herself. The way he didn’t run. The way he whispered, your mind belongs here. 

It’s hard to hate someone like that.

Even when they’ve also called you a monster.

In the end, she doesn’t know what to think of him. She keeps going in circles, walking from her office, to her kitchen, to her bedroom, and her mind spins right along with her. She hates him one minute, and the next she misses him. It isn’t until she goes into the bathroom, stares at her own reflection in the mirror that she figures it out.

She doesn’t hate him. At least, not as much as she hates herself. 

clint:

“Shit,” she mutters, staring up at her ceiling. Her phone’s been going off like crazy, because apparently, Clint doesn’t sleep either. But she’s not even mad when it chimes again. She replies, mocks him a little, and then tosses it aside. “I think we might actually be goddamn friends.”

It’s hard to be annoyed at this inevitable fact. Because Clint has a way of laughing at the world even when it’s trying to knock him down. A way of treading lightly and never pushing too hard. Not to mention great taste in pizza – and women. He might actually be the best goddamn Avenger, if only because he doesn’t need a superpower to save the goddamn world. He’s just purely himself, and there’s something about that, something that seems so impossible to her, but he pulls it off so easily. 

& frank: 

She goes to visit the grave. Of the trafficker, the one she didn’t get paid for. She doesn’t expect to feel anything, standing there in the goddamn cold, kicking at a headstone with a name that means nothing to her. She doesn’t even think about him, how he looked as the EMTs carted him off on the stretcher. She thinks about the man who put him there.

She’s started looking for him on other rooftops. Casting glances over her shoulder whenever she has a summons to serve to another douchebag. But apparently, the Punisher is a sneaky motherfucker. Or maybe he’s just busy in a different part of the city.

She doesn’t know what to make of him. He reminds her of herself, rough and ragged and scarred the fuck up by life. She can’t imagine losing what he did – she’s never even let herself dream of a family, a normal life, not in any real detail. She lost her mind, her will, but she got them back in the end. What Frank lost, that’s not coming back.

She’s still jealous of him.

Because despite all that, he’s found a way to deal with it. A way to make it goddamn right, and he’s not fucking scared to stick with it. She doesn’t agree with his methods, but then, most people don’t agree with hers either. She finds solace in the bottom of a bottle, he finds it through a scope, fingers on the trigger.

She wishes she could have that kind of conviction. There’s something to be said for it, at least he doesn’t waver between guilt and shame and indignation. Like she does. Her mood changes on a dime – some days she’s proud of what she did to Kilgrave, proud to have been the one to finally end him. And some days… most days, it eats her up inside. 

She’s not okay with being a murderer. That’s never been her way. 

But Frank is, somehow. And she’s not exactly okay with him being a killer, but she isn’t going to stand in between him and a target again.

She’s not sure what that says about her. Not sure what bringing flowers to a dead trafficker’s gravestone says about her, either. 

Trish

Clint

Natasha

Bruce Jim Bean

Claire

Clark

Tommy

Send me a ؟ for a random thought kate has about clint.

¿ - for jessica to ask clint a personal or uncomfortable question:

It’s a bad night.

There’s too much in her brain. Too many memories, too many words, too many sounds. She’s trying not to drink, but she knows there’s a bottle in her fridge, a liquor store down the block, bar after bar within walking distance. 

But she’s trying. 

She could call Trish. Go to her, spend the night watching some movie, pretending her mind isn’t crumbling. She could call Natasha, ask her to remove all the liquor from her apartment, but even she doesn’t know where it all is. But neither of them can do what she really needs in this moment. Neither of them can really understand. Trish has felt Kilgrave in her mind, Natasha grew up in the Red Room. But it’s not entirely the same. Fleeting orders, a manipulated childhood -- different kind of horrors. Not better or worse, just different.

So she picks up her phone. Sits on her fire escape and pretends it’s just to get some air, not to avoid her kitchen. Her hands are shaking too much to text, so she hopes he has his hearing aid in tonight.

“Hi,” she says, barreling on before he can even get a word in. “I’m an asshole. But I wanted to ask you something. About -- about him. The one who did it to you,” she says, because mind control is a phrase she can’t say aloud tonight. “How long did he have you? Under his control... how long did it last?” 

🔪 for the eulogy jessica would give for clint: 

@hawkguybartcn

She lingers long after the service, and she’s not the only one. It takes forever for Natasha to leave. Jessica is perched on top of a mausoleum, watching the whole thing from afar. She isn’t exactly on the guest list, but there was no way in hell they were keeping her away. Not from this.

She wonders idly where Hope was buried. 

Finally, Natasha walks off. Jessica feels the urge to go to her, but even in her imagination, she can’t think of what to say. So she waits until the redhead is out of sight, then she slowly climbs down the stone building and makes her way over to the freshly dug grave.

The headstone is black and simple, shining starkly amidst the older graves. Clint Barton. Hawkeye. Avenger & Friend. Some dates, and towards the bottom, a quote. 

A good archer is known not by his arrows but by his aim.   

Jessica nods at the words. She opens her mouth to speak, but her mouth is so dry. Her fingers fumble for the flask in her bag, and with some effort, she manages to pull the top off. She takes a swig, pauses for a moment, then pours some on top of the dark mound of dirt.

“I checked the obits. They spelled your name right,” she says after a long moment. “Asshole. You were supposed to call.” She sighs, shaking her head. Cursing at the dead, that must be a new low. “I’m headed to Garaffolos after this. Like I said I would,” she mutters, tilting the flask back again. The burn reminds her that she’s alive, that she can still feel even though her whole body has been numb since she heard the news. 

It also reminds her that Clint is dead. That he can’t feel anything anymore.

“I don’t even know how it happened,” she says, hating the way her voice cracks. At least he can’t hear it. “My guess is you weren’t goddamn fast enough. Jesus.” She shakes her head, fights so hard, but her eyes are burning with unshed tears. 

She clenches her jaw, stares down at the stupid grave and the stupid goddamn headstone, it’s all too neat, too goddamn tidy, and she just wants to destroy it. Tear the headstone up, dig until her knuckles are bleeding and she’s dragging him out of the goddamn grave, slapping him until his eyes open.

But apparently, only assholes came back from the dead.

She swallows hard, swipes at her face even though she’s alone. “You’re my favorite goddamn Avenger, all right? Fuck you,” she says. Then she’s striding away, draining the last of the whiskey from her flask. She imagines Garaffolos, pictures the two of them sitting together in the booth, talking about shitty pizza parlors and sucky superhero names. Bad stickers. 

Send “✉” for a text that WASN’T SENT: