#d:kate

Before it had been separated from the rest of the world, New York had seemed impossibly large. Riri was sure she’d never explore it all, positive she’d feel like a stranger there for as long as she stayed. Now that leaving wasn’t an option, she was beginning to realize just how small it was, how secluded. She still didn’t know every nook and cranny, but now that she couldn’t leave it, she felt like she did. It wasn’t necessarily a good feeling. Riri didn’t like feeling trapped any more than anyone else did and some days, it was overwhelming. 

Luckily, she had people to help her through it. It was what brought her out to the city tonight, dangerously close to curfew, with Kate at her side. Kate knew New York far better than Riri did, and a ‘tour’ seemed absolutely necessary. (Spending more time with Hawkeye seemed kind of necessary, too!) Grinning, Riri balanced on the edge of the sidewalk as she walked, holding her arms out to keep steady. “Have you ever been in that building?” She nodded towards an apartment complex that looked abandoned, half the windows boarded shut. “It looks kinda cool.”

Really, Tommy hadn’t realized how much he missed Kate until she was back. Sure, he hadn’t noticed that the Skrull posing as her wasn’t Kate herself -- and he felt bad for that, even if he might deny it -- but now that the real Kate was around again, the differences were obvious. Her demeanor, her jokes, her smile, it had all been ever so slightly off when the Skrull was in her place, but now? Now, it was all just as it had been before.

Well, okay, maybe not exactly like it had been before. The demons flying around above the city were sort of new.

“We should kick their asses,” Tommy decided, craning his head upwards as a demon flew by overhead. “I mean, I know they’re not technically attacking anyone, but c’mon. They’re so fucking ugly, Kate, I wanna blow them up.” That was pretty sound logic, right? There was no way Kate wouldn’t agree with him!

Although Lorna hadn’t been aware of her status of a mutant for very long, it was impossible not to be aware of how they were treated as a whole. Any time something went wrong in the world, people were always quick to blame mutantkind. If a rally ended in violence, it was because they had wanted it to. If a bomb went off, one of them should have stopped it. They were an easy scapegoat, and people had always loved those. 

Since arriving in New York, Lorna had learned that things here were no different. People were scared, and since the Skrulls were undetectable, some of them were happy blaming mutants instead. So when Lorna saw a young woman on a rooftop fire an arrow towards a young mutant in a small alleyway, she wasn’t particularly surprised. 

The mutant -- probably not much older than twenty, which seemed ridiculously young even if Lorna herself was only two years older -- was levitating a dumpster, grinning to himself as he did it. Maybe it looked weird, but the kid wasn’t hurting anyone and Lorna felt a rush of anger go through her as the arrow sailed towards him. He didn’t deserve to be shot for practicing his powers. 

Enraged, Lorna curved the arrow’s path, allowing it to bounce harmlessly off the dumpster. When she found she was still angry, she lifted it and turned it back towards the woman who’d fired it. She wasn’t actually gonna hurt the archer, just give her a piece of her mind, but the other woman didn’t have to know that. “What’s your problem,” she demanded, taking a step towards the woman.

Kate was usually pretty good with her hands, for a rich girl at least. She could string a bow, thread a needle with deadly accuracy – but when it came to this, she was totally hopeless.

“Futz,” she muttered, glaring at her useless fingers. (Not totally useless, but useless right now.) “How do you say that in Sign Language? Because it’s the word I’m gonna use most… of… all,” she said, trying to sign the words as she spoke them, but the motions were still a little clumsy.

Kate was good at a frankly ridiculous amount of things. It was almost frustrating sometimes, considering how bad Clint was at a frankly ridiculous amount of things. So seeing her be not-good at something that he was good at was something of a welcome change.

“You can’t say futz in ASL, Katie. It’s not even a real word. But, uh, here.” He signed fuck slowly so she could see and flashed a bright grin. “That’s almost as good! We can make up a sign for it once you get the hang of it all, though.”

People were in and out of Stark Tower a lot, and Riri had become pretty familiar with most of them. The majority of said people were actual superheroes, which, of course, was awesome. At this point, Riri had met a lot of Avengers and X-Men, and it never stopped being impressive even when she herself donned a metal suit and fought crime alongside them from time to time. 

The Young Avengers, though, were sort of different. They were still heroes, still incredible, but they were a lot closer to Riri in age and they shared a certain understanding that the original Avengers didn’t quite get. Like Riri, most of the Young Avengers were legacy-type heroes, modeling themselves after existing crime-fighters. Out of all of them, Riri found she connected the most to Hawkeye. Kate, like Riri, had direct contact with her predecessor, was trained by the original Hawkeye and fought alongside him. The result was that Riri felt sort of a connection with Kate, something that was difficult to feel with anyone else. 

Any time FRIDAY announced that Kate was in the building, Riri was immediately excited. Today, she put down her tools and crossed the lab to meet Kate at the door, grinning and offering the other girl a wave. “Hey, Hawkeye!” She greeted fondly. “What’s up?”

Things with Natasha were tense, and Clint had never done tense well. Hell, maybe it wasn’t fair to say things with Nat were tense; the whole damn world was tense, especially if you were a hero-type. That’s what had gotten Clint into all this to begin with, wasn’t it?

Well. Not entirely.

Texting Kate had eased his mind a little, but it wasn’t quite enough. There was still that clawing, sinking feeling in his stomach, the part of him that believed only in what he could see. That was what made him slip out of the safehouse, what had him risking getting caught (again) to go out onto the streets.

That was what had him picking the lock on Kate’s apartment and letting himself inside. He would’ve taken the window if not for the whole bullet wounds issue. But it was totally his turn to break into her place.

“Y’know,” he said, striding into the living room as smoothly as he could with his injured leg (read: Not smoothly at all), “this place is pretty nice. Don’t know why you keep breaking into mine.”

Throughout his time as Hawkeye (and Ronin, though he talked about that less for obvious, embarrassing reasons), Clint had spent a countless hours on rooftops. It was both a vigilante thing and a sniper thing, meaning he sort of wound up with a double dose of it. Kate, being his protege, was often dragged along for the ride. Tonight, there wasn’t quite as much action as he’d been hoping for, and he was entertaining himself by twirling an arrow around in a way that he figured would probably drive Kate a little crazy.

“Where are all the demons?” He asked, sounding irritated. “I mean, I know they’re invisible now, whatever, but they could at least, like, acknowledge we’re here, right? It feels rude, Katie. You think nobody ever taught ‘em manners or something? Should we hold a class? I’m great at manners. I think I could really teaech ‘em a thing or two.”