chuju | the archer and the earthquake

There are certainly a lot of deeper, darker things they'll have to cover along the way if they continue this. They both have secrets, it's just the nature of things with the sort of lives they've led, but there's also no telling what sort of emotional minefields they'll both need to navigate as they get to know each other. Relationships take hard work in order to succeed, especially when things aren't always sunshine and rainbows.

"Yes, please, this is a story I have to hear," she answers with a smile, turning slightly to face him but not putting any distance between them. They're still physically close, but rather than feeling awkward because of how new this all is, it just feels... nice. It feels right.

Clint grins at her and shakes his head. "Please remember, all of this is a little below the board. And maybe don't tell Coulson," he laughs. He's facing her fully with the lights and buildings behind them as a backdrop.

"So, there are these guys, Russians, maybe mob. I was renting my place from them just to have somewhere away from the Avengers and SHIELD. I've come into some money more recently - legal I promise - and I was just kinda sitting on it with no idea what to do with it. So I started hearing that the Tracksuits were doubling and tripling rents here. And like, there are a lot of families in the building, some young couples, and just, kids that are starting out. No one except me could have afforded the new prices and they all would have had to move."

He takes a breath because he needs to control his anger. He's still so furious that the good people that live here were threatened like that. "Anyway, I found out because they wanted to raise my rent too, and then we all started talking. Long story long, I dropped a bunch of money on the head Tracksuit's desk and told them the building was mine now."

Maybe don't tell Coulson? Now she's really intrigued, and also curious what could make Clint think that. How much of himself has Coulson actually shared with his old friend to give the impression he'd still be bothered by less than legal activities?

As she listens, Daisy can certainly relate to needing a place away from the people she works with day in and day out. There's a part of her that relies on it, her sense of security dependent upon being surrounded by people she trusts, but there's another part that misses the freedom she'd had before joining SHIELD. More than a few times, she's considered getting an apartment outside of the company-owned building she's currently in, but that's just not a leap she's ready to take yet.

That little hint of anger he tamps down on might be a red flag for some people, but for Daisy, it's a giant green one. He's angry on behalf of the people he's taken on as his to protect, the same way she always is when it comes to Inhumans. These people are just trying to live their lives — what's more important than protecting that?

She raises her eyebrows at that last part and asks a follow-up question before taking another sip of her beer. "And they just went with it?"

"No they absolutely did not," Clint replies. "It was a whole thing between me and the tracksuits. They were trying to kill me, I was trying to take their organization apart. There was a lot of back and forth, and the occasional Molotov cocktail through my window. They killed one of my residents in cold blood." Clint is still pretty upset that he hadn't been there to protect Grills when his enemies came calling. It's something that he will never let happen again.

"It's been a bit now, though, and since the tracksuit mob has been taken care of, no one's bothered me at all. Nat's looking into getting everything above the board so no one else can just swoop in and take all this and I get to keep charging fair rents and you know, having a bit of a community around here." It's also kind of nice to not be around heroes all the time. Clint doesn't often consider himself one, so sometimes it can be difficult.

"And sometimes my kids come and visit when we're flipping a unit and they get to help out," he adds.

Daisy frowns while Clint describes the obstacles he'd faced from the Tracksuits. Which, for starters, is a dumb name for a shady Russian mob organization, but that's beside the point. What matters most in that story is how he'd stuck with these people and done what he could, even when he'd lost someone. Her respect for him grows, which seems kind of ridiculous given that he's a freaking Avenger.

"I bet they enjoy working with you like that," she comments in response to the last part, offering him a smile. It's a hell of a story he'd shared, with both lighter and darker elements to it. Leaning on the former, she shakes her head playfully. "Look at you living up to the hero image everyone has of you. I'm impressed."

Clint nods and then shrugs. He's never considered himself a hero, just a guy that wanted to do the right thing. He'd had a bad childhood, and even when he'd thought things were getting better in the circus, he'd found the rot. Barney had turned to crime and Clint doesn't even know what he's doing now, if he's even still alive.

Before Clint could join Barney in his less than legal pursuits, he'd been recruited to Shield. That one moment was the turning point for him. Before that, he could have gone either way. Now though, people see him as a hero and it's all he can do to try to prove to himself that he deserves it.

"I'm trying to. It's a lot to live up to, though."

"I get that," she says softly, her tone serious. More than most people, she gets it. Before joining SHIELD, she'd idolized superheroes, those with powers and without; she'd fangirled hard over meeting Mike with his enhanced abilities. But now with everything she's seen and done, even with her own powers she doesn't always feel like a hero. She's just a SHIELD agent doing her job.

"The first time I heard someone had a poster of me on their wall was..." She shakes her head, looking back out over the city before turning back with raised eyebrows. "And apparently there's some spicy fanfic of me out there, which is... something. But the whole hero thing just feels like I'm going to end up disappointing someone, you know?"

"It's so wild to think about. Like, I'm just a guy, just a divorced old dad and these people look up to me? Kate looked up to me so much that she trained to become an archer. I don't think she does anymore now that she knows me but... it's better that way. It's good that she knows I'm fallible now. That way we can be partners. But yeah, it was a bit of a mindfuck to find out."

He's never looked into fanfiction of himself and he doesn't plan to, but that's wild to him too. "Did you read it?" He asks, morbidly curious to know. "You don't have to tell me." He won't look for it either since that would be crossing a line between them. Daisy is a real person and not just some character in a show.

She makes a mental note to ask more about Kate later. If they're partners, that means she's someone important to Clint, and that makes her someone important to Daisy. And look at her, jumping ahead again when they've only just met. She really has to stop that...

"No, I absolutely did not," she assured him with a firm shake of her head. "Apparently, there was a lot of shipping going on with people I've never even met, so while I'm oddly kind of flattered, big no thanks."

"Okay, but. Now we've gotta look to see if there's some of us together." He wasn't going to but now he's dying of curiousity. They've never met or worked together previously, so he wonders what kinds of shenanigans these writers may have come up with. He pulls out his phone, an amused look on his face, and then opens google. He's never read or written fanfic before, so he doesn't know the first place to look for it.

Typing in 'Clint Barton Daisy Johnson fanfic', he steps closer to Daisy so that she can see it too. A whole website comes up and Clint is honestly surprised. "Okay, what?" he says. He hovers over the link, unsure as to whether or not he should click it.

Daisy hates how curious she suddenly is too, but she loves how Clint just pulls out his phone and starts googling. There's something in it that calls to her, like to like, and she leans in a little closer to get a look at the screen. Her jaw drops at the top result.

"No," she protests, her shock almost comical. "No no no. Don't—"

She raises her hand, pointing at him with the hand still wrapped around her drink, but then she laughs because it's so damn ridiculous, she can't help it. "Okay, okay, click it," she instructs him, covering her eyes and then peeking out through her fingers.

Clint hesitates for a moment, knowing that he absolutely will not click it if she doesn't want him to. The she says yes, and Clint presses the link. He doesn't know what to expect, but the page opens to a pretty sophisticated website that actually looks very organized. It's so fucking weird. He holds his phone out so that they can both see the screen and kind of just scrolls through the results.

"This is... a lot." There are sixteen fanfics tagged with them as a couple, and they've never even interacted before. That just tells him that if they see each other again - even though he's really hoping it's more of a when - and word gets out, these results will expand exponentially. "They have you with Nat and Tony too," he laughs. "And me with Steve? Wow. He's way out of my league." Daisy is also absolutely out of his league, but he can't help but chuckle at what he's seeing.

Oh no. Oh no, she knows this site. There are so many things on that site that she's refused to read, though she's absolutely scrolled through search results out of morbid curiosity. But with these stories about them when there might actually be a them — it takes on a whole new level of weird.

"Apparently the ship name for me and Romanoff is Quack," she shares, both amused and exacerbated by this information. "I was told not to look at it because it gets a little steamy, which I did not need to know, but when Billy gets excited, there's no stopping him. He fanboyed hard when I showed up after my vigilante stint, despite the fact we'd known each other for three years already."

"Quack, hm?" Clint laughs. He closes out the page since it's not like he's actually going to read any of this. He figures if they want to keep seeing each other, the reality of their relationship will be better than anything a stranger might come up with. "What would we be? QuakeEye, Hake? Quawk is too much like Quack," he grins.

They're closer now than they had been before; Clint can feel the warmth of her body now that the air has cooled. He slips his arm around her waist and says, "is this okay?" He doesn't want to make Daisy feel uncomfortable, but it feels like things are going very well. He's more than willing to take it slow though, if that's what she wants. Maybe it makes sense, to build something before jumping right into it, for once.

That's just really not Clint's style.

His attempts at creative names leaves her chuckling not because they're funny, but because they're so bad. QuakeEye? If that's the name they get stuck with, she's going to be so mad. Quake had grown on her, but QuakeEye never would.

This is probably faster than they should be going. The healthier approach would probably be to have a few dates before taking any steps like this, but... That's not Daisy's style either, especially not when he's already been vetted by Coulson. With anyone else, she would be battling a million trust issues, but she has nothing but reasons to trust the man beside her. It makes it easier to embrace the possibilities without being completely terrified of opening herself up to someone else.

"Yeah, it's okay," she says softly, glad they're not that different in height so she doesn't have to crane her neck back to meet his gaze. With a smirk, she adds, "So long as you stop trying to come up with ship names for us."

"They're pretty bad, aren't they?" Clint agrees. He picks his beer back up only to find that he's drank all over it. Shrugging, he sets the bottle aside and drops his hand to her hip. He's still not making any real moves, just establishing closeness at this point. "I'm sure that the public will come up with something worse than anything I can come up with." It'll probably be something like Claisy and have nothing to do with their alter egos.

"So, we've established that we don't like fancy bars, and that neither of us really likes spending time out in the public. So, if we were to have a second date, what would you want to do? It's only fair that you plan it, you know, since I came up with this idea," he teases. He knows full well that he'd barely come up with anything, just conveniently had a rooftop garden to use and beers in the fridge.

She sets her empty drink beside his before turning more into the embrace, fully facing him now. Her hands move to rest on his upper arms, her thumbs gently tracing the muscles she can feel beneath his shirt. It feels right to be this close to him, and she's sure that should scare her — but it doesn't.

"Well," she says, drawing the word out while tilting her head to the side in exaggerated consideration, "I think maybe a movie night. Not actually going to a theater, but getting takeout and watching something at my place or yours. I love going to the movies, don't get me wrong, but I'd much rather see what kind of commentary you can come up with."

Hopefully, he's not someone who would never dare talk during a movie.

When Daisy turns toward him, Clint's other hand comes up to circle her other hip, hands loose and casual, but still keeping her close. He wants badly to kiss her, but he's going to wait. As good as things are going right now, it would be so easy to mess them up. He leans his back against the railing instead, and grins at her.

"You got more plans tonight?" he asks. "Because if not, we can have that second date right now." He's been thinking ab out getting a projector for movie nights on the roof, but he hasn't yet, so they'll have to make do with his tv and couch. If she wants to stay, at least.

For just a moment, Daisy tries to talk sense into herself. Going right into the 'second date' has to be a bad idea. She should make up an excuse to end the evening and give herself time to sort out... something. Emotions and the like. Right? But the moment passes and she doesn't want that time. What she wants is to live in this moment and embrace it fully, because she knows all too well how precious time can be for people like them.

"I'm all yours, Hawkguy," she assures him, wondering if she means that in more ways than one. Sliding her hands up to his shoulders, she hesitates briefly and then smiles expectantly. "But if we're ending our first date, don't you think you should kiss me goodnight before we start the second?"

It's a surprise to him when Daisy agrees. She wants to keep spending time together, and Clint is feeling pretty good about how the night is going. He's told her things that he's never told any of his other dates before, but she gets it. She knows what it's like to be targeted, to have to fight. She gets it more than anyone else would, so he feels comfortable with what he's shared with her so far.

"All mine, hmm?" he teases. Clint brings his hands around and links them at the small of her back. "I guess you should probably sample the goods, make sure that a second date is a good idea," he teases, but then immediately leans in to press his lips to hers.

The kiss isn't necessarily chaste, but he does keep it sweet and simple. Daisy's lips are soft, and she tastes like the beer they'd been drinking, but that's not something that bothers Clint at all. He pulls away and smiles at her, "so, we good to keep dating, or do you need another sample?"

When Daisy wants something, she's all in, and with each passing minute, she's finding that what she wants is Clint Barton. She wants the way she feels safe with him, not only physically but emotionally. She wants the intimacy of having someone who understands and won't judge you for the things you're not proud of. She wants what FitzSimmons have, and as crazy as it sounds, she thinks she might be able to find that with this man she's just met but has known for a decade.

"It never hurts to be sure," she murmurs with her own smile before hooking a hand around the back of his neck and rising up on her toes to meet him. The second kiss is definitely not chaste — she makes it very clear that she's interested while she drinks in the warmth and taste of him. His pulse has sped up a little; she can feel it matching her own and she never wants to forget how it dances across her senses.

Clint isn't quite ready for their second kiss, but he gets with the program pretty quickly. He kisses Daisy back, opening his mouth to her and drawing her in. It's really good, and it feels so natural to kiss her. Not for the first time tonight, Clint thinks that Coulson was probably right, that he should be thinking about finding someone to settle down with again. He's starting to hope that person might be Daisy.

They don't part right away, instead kissing each other on his little rooftop, faces lit up by the New York lights above them. Clint brings his hands up her back, wanting to touch her everywhere that he can reach. When they finally do part, Clint doesn't pull back too far. "Well, I'm convinced. Looking forward to the goodnight kiss after our second date now."

This part of the getting-to-know-you process is easy. There's no question that they click, no doubt that this part of the relationship might not work. She loses herself in the feel of him, the weight of his hands on her body, the curves of his mouth, the vibration that is uniquely him. All of it is slowly committed to memory as the seconds tick by.

She can't but laugh, her voice a little thicker from the effect he's had on her. "Has anyone ever told you you're kind of a dork?" Said with warm affection, of course, as her hands frame his jaw. "I guess it's probably part of the whole dad package."

"What? No, no one's ever said that to me." It's a lie, clearly, from the small smile on his face while he says it. "But really, I think becoming a dad just gave me an excuse to embrace it. I've always been a bit dorky. I mean, who chooses archery as a passion?" he laughs.

They're still so close though, and Daisy has been pretty clear already about what she wants, so he leans in again. Their mouths connect again, but there's nothing hesitant about this kiss. Clint tips Daisy's head back so that he can lick into her mouth, presses their bodies together. It's fine if they don't go any further than this, tonight, but he likes knowing that she wants him just as much as he wants her.

Daisy would never openly acknowledge it, but dorks are kind of her thing. Given all the pain and betrayal she's suffered over the years, she's found herself gravitating toward people who make her feel safe, and no one makes her feel safer than Coulson, who is the king of dorks in her life. So for Clint to have even the slightest hint of dork in his personality elevates him higher in her estimation.

She leans into that kiss, one hand combing fingers through his short hair while her other arm wraps around his back, anchoring him to her. A delicious fire kindles within her and she realizes she'd forgotten what it feels like to be at the start of something. The newness, the excitement, the way everything sparks with passion. She doesn't want to let go, as evidenced by the quiet moan that fills the space between them.

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