Title: do you ever wonder?
Fandom: Marvel Comics (Hawkeye)
Pairing: Clint Barton/Kate Bishop
Length: 525 words
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None apply.
Notes: Written for fan_flashworks  Amnesty #59 - Challenge #337: Wonder
Summary: Two Hawkeyes up on the roof, wondering about a different life




“Do you ever wonder what you’d be doing if you weren’t a super hero?” Kate asks. She and Clint are up on his building’s roof, lying on their backs, looking up at the stars.

“Nope.”

“Nope?” Kate rolls over on her side and looks at Clint. He’s staring up at the sky, looking more relaxed than she’s seen him in a while. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t have to. I know what I’d be doing and it’s nothing good.”

“I don’t believe that.” Kate knows Clint and no matter what he’s done in the past, she knows that at his core he’s a good person. She doesn’t believe that without the Avengers and all this spandex stuff that he would have stayed on the darker road. “I think you would have found your way, one way or another,” she tells him.

“Maybe,” Clint says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

They’re quiet for a few minutes. Kate rolls onto her back and watches for shooting stars. There’s supposed to be some big meteor shower tonight, which is why they’re up on the roof in the first place, but so far there’s been nothing but ordinary stars and a couple of airplanes flying overhead. The city lights probably weren’t helping matters any.

“How about you? What would you be doing if you weren’t doing this?” Clint asks.

Kate sighs. She’d latched onto the super hero thing at an early age and it was hard to imagine doing anything else. “Well, I’ve done the private eye thing.”

“That’s pretty much the same job but with people paying you to help them,” Clint points out.

Yeah, when she could actually get people to pay their bills, which was never as often as she liked. “I don’t know. I’ve been doing this since I was a teenager, I don’t think I’m really cut out for anything else.”

“School teacher?” Clint suggests.

“Oh god, no. Have you even met me?” Kate liked kids and all but she couldn’t see spending the whole day surrounded by big groups of them so many days of the year.

Clint laughs and Kate moves a little closer.

“I bed you’d make a great teacher.” Clint moves his hand closer and interlaces his fingers with hers. “Little kids, elementary school or whatever it’s called.”

“Sure, and you can teach PE.”

“You think I should be a gym teacher?”

“Why not? You could teach the kids archery and self-defense. It’s a dangerous world out there.”

“So, are we at the same school? Am I teaching kindergarteners to shoot arrows and throw knives?”

Kate laughs, she could almost picture it. “Sure, why not. We could meet up under the bleachers every day at lunch.”

“Oh, so you’re a naughty school teacher in this scenario, is that it?”

“Only for you, Hawkeye.” Kate sees a streak of light flash across the sky. “Look, a shooting star,” she says, pointing up. “Make a wish.”

Clint looks up. “I see it.” Then he rolls over, brushes the hair out of her face, and kisses her. Kate wraps her arms around him and knows that they’re both right where they belong.