Since the holidays, Kate Bishop had fallen into this lovely morning routine where she'd sit on the Barton family porch and watch the sun rise over the farm with a cup of cocoa.
Snow on the farm wasn't like snow back home. Snow on the farm could lay out in virgin crystalline white for a few days before every asshole who ever lived in New York stomped and pissed it into a tacky gray sludge. No. When you walked out onto the snow on the farm, it was still stiff and made this satisfying crunch under your feet. Even days after.
So Kate wanted to soak it all in on her last day.
It certainly didn't hurt that the cocoa was incredible. It reminded her of something or someone just on the tip of her taste buds. Like there was a secret ingredient or something. Kate had been determined to get it out of Clint's wife, Laura. That seemed less likely now.
Despite the magnificence of her hot chocolatey beverage, Kate's favorite part of this porch-sitting routine was most definitely the fact that she did it in her pajamas, and on the farm, Kate's pajamas were mighty fantastic.
On her first night with the Bartons, she'd been digging through an old trunk in the guest room for an extra blanket and found this gray threadbare Guns N' Roses sweatshirt she tossed on because it looked comfy.
And it was.
It was a little big on her, but it was soft and always just this right bit of warm. And it smelled like cedarwood, apples and ash. There was something about that musk that just made Kate feel better. Better about herself. Better about the people around her. Better about life.
When she showed up at breakfast wearing it the next morning, Laura told her the legend:
"Oh, so that's where that was," she said. "I stole it from an old boyfriend."
"Lance Hunter counts as a boyfriend?" Kate remembered Clint saying.
"You've got to get over this," Laura sighed. "We were barely a thing then. That was before you. And he's got Bobbi now."
"'Barely a thing' or 'old boyfriend'?" Clint smirked. "Which one is it?"
Laura ignored him, turning to Kate. "I stole that shirt from a man I barely kind of knew a lot and have totally forgotten about it and him." She looked at her husband. "But Thor borrowed it that one time he spent the night here."
Kate dropped her spoon into her corn flakes. These jerks had buried the lede.
Maybe some minor marital strife was tied up in this shirt, but when Kate was a kid, she could hear all of her parents' fights through the vents in their Park Avenue penthouse. She tried to tell herself the Bishops were still happy because she couldn't imagine anything else, but she was old enough now to get the difference. Kate had known it since the moment Clint told her how much he just wanted to get home for Christmas.
"You're saying Thor wore this shirt?" Kate asked the battling Bartons.
"I'm saying Thor
slept
in that shirt," Laura affirmed.
The God of Thunder, slayer of Thanos, Thor Odinson his-own-self had slumbered in this very raiment! It was the sweatshirt of a living deity, and Kate was wearing it and that made her feel cool. Yes, she had a favorite old-school Avenger --- that much was obvious, she was eating breakfast with his kids -- but that didn't mean she couldn't love Thor, too.
"Kate, please consider that sweatshirt yours, and take it far, far away from this farm whenever you leave so my husband and I never have to have this conversation again," Laura laughed. "My gift to you, but really, your gift to me."
On her last day on the porch, sipping her coffee, Kate remembered that morning and smiled. Not just because that moment when she'd take that shirt away was happening now, but because that's what she wanted someday. That thing the Bartons had. Someone she loved so much that even their dumb fights became these intimate inside jokes that made everyone else around them vaguely uncomfortable, but mostly out of jealousy.
Kate was really going to miss this place.
Clint had trained her enough by that point that she knew he was coming. He didn't say anything. He rarely did if he didn't have to. He just walked out onto the porch and sipped from his own mug.
She looked up at him. "I have to go home, don't I?" she said.
Clint shook his head. "You don't have to go anywhere," he told her. "Stay here as long as you want. It's just..."
"I've been here too long."
He let that sit for a bit before he said, "Katie, we love having you here, but you have a life to get back to..."
"It's more like a huge mess to get back to, but I'm already packed," she informed him. "And don't call me Katie."
"We can set you up wherever you want to go," he told her.
"Like Budapest?"
"Sure, but I don't recommend it," Clint replied, not taking the bait. "Except for the Flippermúzeum. That's pretty dope, as you kids say."
Kate smiled despite herself. She wasn't a kid, but she knew kids didn't say that anymore. "Anywhere I want, huh?"
Clint nodded. "It's probably not too late to go back to school," he suggested.
"I've already got enough credits to graduate," Kate told him. "I was actually looking forward to going back and goofing off around campus when I was just the girl who fucked up the bell at Stane Tower, but now I'm the daughter of a murderer, and that seems less fun."
This got her nothing from Clint. He really was going to make her figure this all out for herself, wasn't he? All of a sudden, he expected her to act like an adult or something... It was almost better when he treated her like a kid.
"Guess I'd better go home," she decided. "At least for a while. There are things to be straightened out. Mom's trial isn't going to be for a bit, but she actually got bail. I just don't want to deal with it, Clint."
Kate Bishop's favorite Avenger looked out over his snow-covered acreage. "This is a great place to hide from your enemies," he said eventually, "but you shouldn't use it to hide from your real life."
Two months ago, Kate would have shot back with, "Isn't that what you're doing?" But she knew better now. All the world-saving adventures were just a job to Clint Barton. This farm
was
his real life. "I'll book a flight right now," she said instead.
"Like I said, we'll take care of all that..."
"No, Clint, you guys have already done too much," she told him. "I feel like an idiot for overstaying my welcome, and the thing with Cooper--"
"Let's not talk about Cooper any more than we already have if we don't have to," he insisted. "I'm embarrassed. He's embarrassed. I'm embarrassed for him... But if there's something more you
