DRABBLE: Path of the Eclipse ~ Marvel Hawkeye comics ~ Teen

[batsutousai]

Title: Path of the Eclipse
Fandom: Marvel (616 universe)
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Clint is a wreck, language, fluff
Summary: It's been a shit everything and all Clint wants is to go to sleep.

Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Matt Fraction and Marvel. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: For my lovely Han-chan (hangebokhan), who got some shite news and asked for some fluff. I remembered you saying you liked Fraction's Hawkeye, so I figured that would be a good world to drop some fluff into. ♥♥

Written while listening to the Child of Light soundtrack, which is where the title comes from.

-0-

It had been a shit night. Or a shit day and a shit night. With possibly another night full 'o crap thrown on top.

He'd stopped keeping track the first time he ran out of arrows, had to go scrounging through fallen corpses for more, dodging gunshots and energy weapons and whatever the fuck else they'd got their hands on. And it didn't help that AIM didn't train their beekeeping squad so they could hit the side of a fucking barn–

Okay, so, minor overstatement, but there had definitely been room for Stormtrooper jokes. Stark may even have cracked a few. Clint may have joined in. Cap might have laughed.

Like he said, he'd stopped keeping track.

He fumbles his keys in the lock and barely resists the urge to moan as they slip from fingers a little too close to nerveless for comfort and clatter loudly on the floor.

Okay, so maybe he should have listened to Cap and fucking stayed over at the mansion, but he had a dog to feed and people to watch over and–

Small, dark hands pick up the fallen keys and Clint finds himself staring down into wide eyes. He blinks and, yup, still there. "Hey there, Tiny Simone." One of them. He should probably learn their names at one point, but, eh. He wonders if Simone is around, probably watching him and shaking her head from the doorway of her apartment, but he really can't be assed to check.

"Can you–?" he thinks he asks, but it may have been a slur, may have just been going through the motions of moving his mouth and making grunting noises, he really wasn't sure at this point.

(We've been over the shit everything.)

It doesn't matter, because Tiny Simone – maybe he could start numbering them? – One is actually awesome and sticks the key – the right key, because now Clint can see that he'd been trying to fumble the wrong key into the lock, because this is his life and fucking shit everything – in the lock and turns it.

"Thank you," he says, taking care to enunciate, and Tiny Simone One grins at him and vanishes in a puff of small-voice chatter that Clint is really not with it enough to translate.

He pushes his door open, manages to get his keys out of the lock on the third try, and almost trips over Lucky as the damn dog comes to greet him, thankfully not barking up a storm, because Clint's pretty sure it's ass-o'clock in the morning and that would be rude.

Do dogs understand the concept of rude?

Dogs understand the meaning of hungry, and Clint is versed enough in Lucky-stare to know that look, so he butt-bumps the door closed behind him – did it latch closed? He doesn't even care any more – and stumbles into the kitchen to find something to feed Lucky.

Bow and quiver on the counter – have to remember to refill the quiver later from his stash, maybe a couple extra special trick arrows to make AIM regret their everything – open the fridge door, see if he can find anything that doesn't stink like the sewers that he'd been crawling through last week – and wasn't that an excellent reminder of how much of his life is shit (oh, God, that wasn't even funny he needs to crash) – open a couple of containers – Katie's been reorganising his fridge again, hasn't she, goddammit – and find something that should be edible for Lucky. He pulls off the lid and tosses it into the sink, drops the Tupperware – honest-to-God fucking Tupperware, where the hell does Kate get this shit? – on the floor and makes for bed.

He hears the sound of something thudding to the floor shortly after he face-plants in the bed, and it takes him way too long to realise it's his shoe, which he just kicked off. It takes him a minute to find the energy to kick off the second one, and then there's no more energy left and maybe he'll suffocate here, on his bed. It would be an excellent way to go out, take that, AIM, with your lousy-ass shooting training.

Something makes the bed shift next to him and Clint feels and wet nose in his ear. Lets that nose flop his head over until he's staring through half-shut eyes into Lucky's one good eyes. He tries a smile, knows it's a shit try, and flops a hand up the bed far enough that he can stroke a paw.

Lucky lets out a huff directly in his face and shifts on the bed, repositions himself so he can get his nose under Clint's hand and work it up his snout, over his head, like the worst pet in the history of pets, but it's kind of perfect, exactly what Clint needed after a fucking shit night-day-night-whatever.

"Good boy," he thinks he slurs, his eyes falling shut.

'Thanks for being here,' he thinks just before he passes out, because he'd take Lucky and the Simones (proper size and laughing, and tiny and chattering) and fumbling his keys and climbing too many stairs and–

He's glad he didn't listen to Cap.

.