Title: stubborn ink
Fandom: Marvel Comics (Hawkeye)
Pairing: Clint Barton/Kate Bishop
Length: 709 words
Rating: Teen
Warnings: No major warnings apply
Summary: the morning after



Clint feels good. Satiated. His usual morning aches and pains seem to hurt a little less this morning despite going to a club the night before. Stretching his arms above his head he catches a glimpse of the smudged ink octopus on the back of his hand. He frowns, licks his thumb, and rubs at it. The ink won’t budge. Kate shifts beside him. She’s awake now, curled up against his side. He slides his arm around her.

"Weren't you going to show me a trick for removing this club stamp from my skin?" Clint asks.

Kate shifts her body so she can better use her hands to talk. “You distracted me,” she signs.

Clint laughs. “I distracted you?” That's not the way he remembers it.

He sits up and switches to ASL. "You distracted me. That dress -" He grins thinking about the little plum-colored dress with the plunging neckline she’d worn to the club last night. "-the way you moved on the dance floor" Clint waggles his eyebrows. "Very distracting”

And then there was the way she’d kissed him in the middle of the club. At which point, his brain had totally short-circuited, and everything that came after was one big sexy blur until they’d made it back to his place.

Kate sits up and the sheet slides down, offering him another round of temptation. Clint doesn’t bother trying to resist her this time. He knows what he wants, and there’s no longer any point in pretending otherwise.

Later, Kate’s curled up beside him again, her head on his chest when she suddenly sits up, pokes him in the chest, and fingerspells L-U-C-K-Y while making a sad face. Clint sighs. The dog’s probably whining on the other side of the door. He gets out of bed, opens the door, and steps aside as Lucky bounds into the room and jumps up on the bed.

Clint grabs a hearing aid from the drawer, slips it in his ear, and turns it on. He should probably get dressed or something. Lucky’s going to need a walk and he has a feeling that he's going to be the one taking him. He pulls on a pair of mostly clean jeans and the stamp on his hand catches his attention once again.

"Do you really know a trick to get these club stamps off your skin?" He asks, rubbing at the offending ink once again.

Kate shakes her head.

"No?" He knew it.

Kate shrugs. “Nope, I just wanted you to come out to the club with me.”

Clint pulls a t-shirt off the top of the pile of hopefully clean clothes and pulls it on. “I hate clubs."

”I know, but I had a plan."

Clint leans against the wall. "A plan?” He crosses his arms in front of his chest. “What sort of plan?”

"The kind that ends up with you and me naked in your bed,” Kate says, a mischievous grin playing on her lips.

“I like that plan. We should do that plan more often."

"I thought you would - well, I hoped you would? Should we talk about it?"

Clint watches Kate sniff one of the shirts from his pile, and pull it on. "About us?" He's torn between wanting to see where exactly they stand and not wanting to poke at it too much and risk messing everything up.

Kate pauses a moment, opens her mouth, and then closes it without saying a word. She bites her lip and tries again. “I think we’re fine, we can talk about it later if you think we need to.” She climbs out of bed and kisses him.

Clint wraps his arms around her and they’re making out again. “If we keep doing this we’re going to end up back in bed and Lucky’s gonna make a puddle on the floor,” he says when they come up for air.

“I’ll go get some pants on,” Kate says and steps out of the room.

He follows. “You don't have to, I’ll walk him.”

Kate finishes shimmying into her jeans. “We can go together, we can get some coffee and doughnuts at the bakery.”

“I’ve got to say, I’m really liking your plans lately, Hawkeye.”

“Right back at ya, Hawkeye.”