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“Oh my God.” Laura looks up from the Clif bar she’s in the middle of stuffing her face with to blink over at her younger sister sat on the edge of the ratty sofa with her eyes glued to the TV and her physics homework forgotten in her lap. “ Laura! ” She screeches as if she weren’t just in the other room stuffing her face full of snack food for her lunch break. “Oh my God! Come here! There’s aliens attacking New York!”
Laura’s not sure of what goes through her mind at Anna’s words, but she rushes over to stare at the complete chaos that is the breaking news.
There’s literally real-life aliens destroying the city.
The camera quality’s bad, but it doesn’t take away from the absolute devastation that is the endless stream of aliens and bizarre-looking aircraft falling out a dark, rippling hole in the sky high above the skyscrapers. There’s debris everywhere, people screaming, and the sounds of terror coming through the old flat-screen’s speakers send a spark of unspeakable fear through her spine.
It’s surreal, almost. But then her mind snaps with a myriad of half-finished thoughts like ‘oh my God we’re not safe they’re coming here next all those people holy shit I have to do something I can’t just- something oh my God’ and just the feeling of cold, empty fear.
“Anna,” Laura breathes, finally coming to a decision at some point. “Anna,” she repeats her sister’s name more confidently, and the college student blinks up at her with a pale, frightened expression. “I’m going to help.”
“ What?! ” She stands up and her textbook clatters to the floor forgotten. “That’s all the way in New York!” She flails her arm in the TV’s direction as if to make her point clear. “You can’t go!”
“I am,” Laura declares loudly. “They need help! Do you see that?” She points at the large green creature, something that looks like that man from those leaked YouTube videos of Harlem awhile back. He’s bringing his fists down on the creatures, and through the wobbly camera, it looks like he’s managed to crash one of their flying crafts. There’s still so many aliens though.
And so many people in danger.
“New York!” Anna slams her foot and raises her hands in exasperation. “How are you even gettin’ there?!”
“I’ll take a chunk of the lawn, I’ve done it before,” Laura’s lips thin and she stares at her sister with a challenge in her gaze. “Tell me if you think you can change my mind.”
Anna’s eyes flash, but she seems to deflate on herself in the next breath. “No,” she shakes her head. “But you- you’re- mom’s gonna freak out !”
There’s an explosion on the TV, and they both look towards it in shock. The reporter is screaming. “We can’t keep talking about this,” Laura drops her Clif bar on the coffee table and turns on her heel, heading for the door.
“Laura! Wait!” She hears Anna clammering behind her while she takes the stairs down the apartment complex two at a time. “What about- what about all that crap you kept saying about not taking sides?! About not putting your neck out for the X-men cause it’s just askin’ for trouble,” Anna hisses at her back, trying to keep her voice down but failing.
“This isn’t about the X-men, Anna!” Laura tries to glare at her over her shoulder while she muscles her way through the building’s heavy door and outside. “Those aliens-,” she turns towards her sister on the landing, her work shoes scraping roughly against the concrete. “How long do you think we’ll be safe? How long until they’re in Chicago?”
“But goin’ running after them isn’t safe either!” Anna practically wails. “What if you die before they even get here?! What’s gonna happen then?!”
“You and Le get Ma and Dad, and you guys head to DC.”
“ What ?!” Anna practically spits.
“Sam and Logan live there. Their number’s on my phone.” Laura fishes her phone out of her uniform pocket and thrusts it at Anna. “I’ll call you on there when it’s safe.”
She doesn’t waste any more time with her sister’s sputtering. Laura backs away into the middle of the lawn and touches her fingertips to the earth. There’s a terrible vibration for a moment - then nothing as a chunk of the lawn, just big enough for Laura to crouch on, levitates out of the dirt and high into the sky.
She’s flown to New York like this once before, and as she rises ever higher, she tries to remember the way. When she thinks the horizon looks right, she takes off as fast as she can propel the piece of earth without dislodging herself on it.
It takes her less than a half-hour to get close enough to the city to see the black hole ripped through the sky, and minutes more to actually be able to make out the shapes of the aliens dotting the scape.
When she’s close enough to see the green giant from the TV, she drops closer to the earth, dodging rubble and some kind of bullets going off every which way. There’s aliens, too, and she evades those with her heart stuck in her throat and the vague sense of ‘what the fuck am I doing I’m fucking crazy’ eating her up from the inside.
Laura violently shoves aside those worries; she’s here now, and there’s no take-backs.
The green giant is violently fighting some kind of boat-shaped thing , and she gives herself a moment to blink, to block out the screams, and then she lifts a piece of rubble from the building the giant had just slammed into, and restructures it into a crude projectile - hands and feet spread wide, her eyes trained with a preternatural intensity on the alien - and launches it as hard as she can straight into what she’s assuming is the alien’s head. There’s an inhuman scream, flailing, more debris, more of the building is destroyed ( there’s people there’s people in there oh my God ). And she’s pretty sure the thing is dead.
The green giant skids to a halt in the street a little ways ahead of her, and his head’s tilted towards her almost curiously, almost indignant.
“ Friend ,” he bellows, and she’s not sure if it’s a question, but she feels herself nodding.
“I came to help!” She yells back, not sure how much English the creature knows.
“ Smash! ” He yells, and then he’s bounding towards her.
She’s given a horrible moment to think he’s intending to smash her, but instead of being crushed to death, the giant plucks her up in one meaty fist, and then he’s run-jumping with her clutched in one hand down the street. Laura’s then trying not to lose her lunch of one-and-a-half Clif bars, and is too preoccupied by not trying to vomit to try and figure out where he’s taking her.
He deposits her unceremoniously in front of a guy in a Captain America getup and some tall blonde guy nearly as big as the giant himself.
“Ugh,” she takes in a sharp breath and scampers to her feet.
“Hulk!” The Captain America-looking dude yells at the green giant. “Civilians are supposed to get to cover!”
“She smash!” The green giant - Hulk , maybe - actually points at her.
“Hulk!” The Captain America-dude barks, but then there’s things and they’re shooting things.
Laura panics for a brief fear-induced moment, and then she’s raising the concrete around herself in a crude stone-version of the Iron Man armor (she’d gotten the idea from watching YouTube clips, and practiced until she could get the mobility right) the same moment she breaks off a sizeable piece of the street and tries her hardest to crush those alien things running towards them.
She swears she can actually hear the other two men staring at her. She swings her gaze through her open-faced concrete helmet to look up at the Captain America-dude since the green giant, Hulk, seems to know him, at least. “I’m a mutant!” She yells over the sounds of the city being destroyed around them, “I’m here to help!”
“Right!” He shouts back before dragging her behind a mostly-destroyed car as they’re shot at again. She spies the tall blonde guy actually laughing and swinging a giant hammer at the aliens. She wonders vaguely what’s wrong with him. “Then help!” He looks at her seriously, “Take out as many as you can!”
She’s a little bit beat after taking over for Iron Man, levitating enough concrete and dirt to hold a nuke , and pushing it through that alien portal thing once she’d clued into Iron Man’s life being in danger. The guy with the bow catches her by the shoulder of her uniform before she falls face-first into her plate of falafel. Iron Man’d taken them out for shwarma, but she doesn’t do meat.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, and scrubs at her face when a thought occurs to her. She’s not proud of the string of curses that comes out of her mouth, especially when the guy who’s apparently actually Captain America frowns in her direction. “Sorry,” she says again, truly apologetic, “but, um, does someone have a phone I can borrow?”
“Here ya are, sweetcheeks,” and Tony Fucking Stark shoves a sleek Stark-phone that he’d fished from his pocket across the table at her.
She takes a moment to balk at the phone that must cost eighty-thousand times more than her crappy LG, before she’s dialing her own cellphone’s number on the thing. She doesn’t get up from the table, too tired to care about things like privacy, and presses the phone to her ear when it picks up on the second ring.
“Anna-” she starts, but is abruptly cut off.
“ Laura Isabell Baum! ” Anna screeches through the phone. “What the everliving fuck! Seriously! What the fuck?! What. The. Fuck ?!”
She’s pretty sure everyone at the table can hear her sister clear as a bell through the phone’s speakers. “Anna,” Laura says in a far softer voice. “I’m okay. I’m okay, it’s over.”
“You’re damn right it’s over!” She yells, “Dad went up to grandpa’s, and I had to talk them outta calling up Professor X! Do you know how freaked out everyone is? Seriously?!”
“I’m fine,” she tries to reassure. “Just tired. I can’t- I can’t come home right away. I’m all tapped out.” She can hear her sister breathing heavily over the phone. “I think I’ll head up to the school, okay? I’m sure Professor Xavier will let me bum a room off of him for a night. Then I’ll be home first thing tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” Anna says, and she’s not yelling. “I’ll talk to Parents. Leann’s still over Josh’s.” There’s a pause. “Logan called.”
“What’d he say?”
“He asked how you were so stupid,” and there’s a smile in her middle sister’s voice. “I told him it was his fault.”
She laughs, but it’s a tired, broken thing. “Sure it is,” she’s grinning at her falafel, “has nothin’ to do with how Parents raised us.” Anna snorts. “Honest, Anna. I’m fine. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“‘Kay,” and she hangs up the phone.
She hands the phone back to Stark, but everyone’s staring at her. The whole table. She wraps her arms around her middle, her bruises pressing uncomfortably against her shirt buttons, in her discomfort at so suddenly being the center of attention. “...yes?” she questions the group at large after a moment.
“You’re, uh, you’re a civilian?” Captain America manages to make it sound like a question.
She looks down at her starchy navy blue uniform and shrugs. “I’m a paramedic.”
“But you spoke about Professor X?” Stark raises a brow and tilts his head at her. “No X-men connection? For reals?”
“I went to X-school,” she says slowly, still tired and uncomfortable, “when I was a teenager. And I helped the Army with a thing, once, but that was years ago.”
“What ‘thing’?,” he prompts, buzzing with curiosity, and she wonders how he still has enough energy for even that.
“An issue with some of Magneto’s people,” she frowns harshly at the reminder. “I contained a few people for arrest. Voluntarily. There was a thing at the school,” she pauses. “It wasn’t bad. It was stupid, really.” She chews on her bottom lip a moment. “I’m not with the X-men. I…” She frowns, “People hurting people over mutations and philosophy is the stupidest thing ever. I won’t get involved in that.” She’s actually starting to feel genuinely upset at the reminder of all those issues, and coupled with her exhaustion, Laura makes herself get to her feet and head to the restaurant’s bathroom to pull herself together in private.
When she comes back, Stark has a chastised look about him, and the other woman at the table smiles kindly at her and extends a hand. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced, I’m Natasha.”
She tries to smile and shakes her hand. “Laura.”
“Tony’s sorry for being pushy,” the woman says on his behalf, and Stark doesn’t butt in. “The rest of us are crashing at his Tower for the night. You’re welcome to join us.”
“Oh,” she blinks, but a shy smile graces her lips after a moment’s thought. “I’d like that.” At least this way she won’t have to figure out transportation to the school, because she doubts she could levitate a pebble right then.
Laura wakes up tired. It’s not a good feeling, but she’d woken due to all the sunlight coming through the open floor-to-ceiling window in the guest room she’d slept in. She gets up though, knowing she’d rather be home sooner than later, and figures she’s rested enough for that.
She follows the sounds of people, and finds herself in a large open kitchen. There’s breakfast food and coffee, and she feels herself relax. Everyone’s wearing clothes borrowed from Tony - including herself; a Beatles t-shirt and a pair of his boxers as shorts - and the sight is strange. Tony’s a smaller guy, so the clothes don’t fit everyone too well, and she tries not to stare at all the exposed skin on the more muscled men of the group. She’s almost too tired to not be polite about it.
“What d’ya want for food?” The guy who had the bow asks her when he slides an empty mug at her in front of the coffee machine.
“Bagels, if you have ‘em,” she mumbles and pours a mug-full of lovely dark coffee. She usually takes hers black with a pinch of cinnamon, but plain old black will do. “Either plain or with jam.”
He reaches across the countertop and takes up a bag of them. “How many?”
She rubs a hand absently against her stomach in thought, the uncomfortable emptiness of true hunger eating at her through her exhaustion. “Two’s fine.”
The guy makes up her bagels, and bagels for himself, and sits next to her at the breakfast bar, as he’d done at the shwarma place. She’s not too sure why, but she doesn’t think about it while she smears raspberry preserves on her bagel before stuffing her face.
His biceps are really distracting though.
He’s wearing a ratty white tank, and yeah, she’s not blind and she noticed his biceps in his SWAT gear, or whatever it was, but for some reason it’s more noticeable when he’s wearing something more casual. And it doesn’t help that his hair’s still sleep-rumpled, which is freaking adorable and makes her want to run her fingers through it. Laura blinks and tells herself to quit side-eyeing him and focus on her breakfast. She still does though, and blames it on not being awake or fed enough to tell her ladyparts to calm the fuck down.
If Anna were here, she’s sure she would’ve said something. Freaking empaths.
“Who’s all staying, and who’s all leaving?” Stark asks suddenly, enough to startle her from her ogling, and takes a long sip of hot coffee. “Just wondering cause, y’know, it’s my Tower and all.”
“I’ll be heading home,” she announces, but then gives herself a moment to actually think about it. “...how likely do you think it is that the Army ‘ll shoot me outta the sky?” She has no doubt they’re on high alert from the alien invasion yesterday.
“Hmm,” he taps his fingers against the counter. “Probably definitely. Where do you live?”
“Chicago.”
He sputters on air. “You flew here from Chicago ?”
“On a piece of my front lawn,” she shrugs. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Of course not,” he rolls his eyes. “Might as well get the jet ready, seeing as how you’d shown me up yesterday. Purely for payback purposes. My jet’s awesome .”
That startles a laugh out of her. “You’re welcome,” she smiles. “And thanks.”
Two weeks later she comes home to see Anna entertaining two men in the living room - one stranger in a suit, and the other the guy with the biceps, his biceps totally on display.
“Uh, hello?” She says, but the two men are already looking at her.
“Ms Baum,” the man in the suit comes forward and offers her a hand. “My name’s Agent Coulson. I work with Agent Barton.” Her eyes flick over towards the other man - she didn’t know his name until then - and back towards the suited Agent. ‘ Agent of what? ’ her mind whispers at her, even as she takes his hand. “May we have a word? I have an office nearby.”
She hesitates, and Anna takes the chance to butt in. “She doesn’t want to go with you,” she grumbles.
“We just want to talk,” he says in reply to Anna’s statement, but he’s holding Laura’s gaze. “It’s about the incident in New York. We never got your statement for our case-file.”
That makes sense, but Anna speaks before she can. “You’re lying,” her sister’s voice is a harsher grumble. “This one,” she points her thumb at Biceps - Agent Barton , “is anxious.”
“Interesting,” Agent Coulson actually swings his gaze towards Anna - looking critically at her dyed Rubber Ducky-yellow hair, pierced face, and neon jeggings - and back towards Laura, his expression impassive and holding tight on his thoughts, “Is your whole family comprised of mutants?”
“I don’t see how that matters,” she frowns, and distantly wishes her sister would’ve kept her empathic mutation to herself for once. She doesn’t know this guy, and she doesn’t trust him. “And I’m not going anywhere with you - I don’t know who you are.”
He actually almost smirks. “But you know Agent Barton, yes?” At her reluctant nod, he continues, “We’re both government agents. You were directly involved in the situation in New York, you haven’t been debriefed, and by extension of your involvement with Mr Anthony Stark, you’ve been privy to some sensitive information. We need a statement, and for you to sign some non-disclosure agreements.”
She looks between her sister and the two agents, and sighs. If they try anything, she guesses her mutation would be enough to protect her. “Alright.”
Laura’s not even surprised when it turns out that a statement and some NDAs aren’t all the agent wants from her. After a couple of hours he tells her about SHIELD, and she’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I’ll get to the point, Ms Baum.” Agent Coulson sits back in his chair, but the movement’s stiff, and she swears she sees a flash of pain flutter across his face for a second. “We want you for the Avengers Initiative.”
She raises both brows in surprise, “I’m sorry, what?”
“The Avengers. The group of exceptional individuals you’d happened to insert yourself in during the Battle of New York.”
Laura subconsciously fiddles with the patch on her uniform shirt. She’s trying to wrap her head around what he’s saying. “You want me to be a superhero? Like Iron Man, or Captain America, or something?”
“Essentially.”
Her brows furrow together harshly at the thought. “I didn’t join the X-men after graduation. What makes you think I’d be willing to join your Avengers?”
“Well, you already have. In a matter of speaking.” She frowns, and he continues. “The team accepted you, but outside of that, you meet the qualifications.”
“Which are?”
“A willingness to serve, to protect, and a quality that marks you as exceptionally remarkable.” He adjusts his tie, and the movement is still noticeably stiff. “I don’t sugar coat, Ms Baum. It comes down to the fact that you’re a level four terrakinetic with training under Professor Xavier, and on top of that you’re a licensed paramedic.” He sits back a bit more. “The Avengers are not the X-men. The Avengers Initiative was formed to protect against threats that endanger people regardless of nationality or allegiance, whether that threat be aliens, terrorists, or anything and everything in between.”
She chews on that bit of information for a moment. “Then why didn’t you try to recruit me before? Your people have to have files on all of Xavier’s graduates.”
He actually shrugs a bit. “We were not certain of your level, despite your history. You’d also shown an inclination towards non-violence, and a hesitancy in utilizing your mutation. But given what happened in New York,” he waves his hand. “We had to reevaluate. You’d proved to be a solid four capable of being a formidable opponent despite your reservations. And,” he adds, “your lack of affiliation with the X-men or Magneto is favorable.”
“I can’t imagine many fours aren’t aligned with either,” she mutters.
“Or incarcerated,” Coulson adds.
She takes a moment to think and scrubs a hand through her hair. Did she want to be an Avenger? A superhero? To put herself out there like that? Endanger herself like that? She’d done it in New York, but by fighting the aliens she’d also protected her family by extension, which was her motivation in the first place. But… wouldn’t an Avenger protect them as well? Maybe even more than her occasionally using her mutation whenever a threat posed great enough?
She helped people as a paramedic, saved some even, and joining the Avengers would potentially save a lot more than she could at her job. She could use what Mother Nature had given her, and really make a difference - without the risk of hurting people mixed up in prejudice or conflicting ideology.
“How would I go about….,” she considers her word choice, “becoming an Avenger?”
There’s a flickering shadow of something like a smile crossing the agent’s face. “You would have to pass SHIELD basic training, and there’s a veritable mountain of paperwork to go through before placement.”
A wry smile curls her lips. “My parents are gonna kill me,” she shakes her head.
It’s another two and a half months before she finds herself back at the Tower, this time with a dufflebag full of her possessions from SHIELD HQ. The rest of her things from the apartment she’d shared with her sisters back in her hometown of Chicago were shipped ahead to her now-permanent quarters. She’d gotten a tattoo to commemorate it - a stylized ‘A’ sat below the double helix at her right wrist, and was still so new she had the bandage over it. The double helix was from when she’d graduated X-school, and she thought they’d gone well together.
“Earthbender!” She reflexively grimaces a bit at the shrill sound.
There’s Tony Stark there though, and she gives him a little wave after setting her dufflebag by her feet. “Hi!” She smiles. “Long time no see.”
“Jesus,” he says and ignores her comment. She watches as he gives her a quick once-over. “You can actually look human. Go figure.”
“What?” Her face scrunches up, and she looks down at her skinny jeans and floral peasant-shirt and doesn’t see any problem. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just-” he waves his hands around, “You were all uniform-wearing and then zombie-looking, no offense, and it’s weird. You look normal.”
“Um?” She pops a brow in her confusion. “Thank you?”
“No problem,” he grins. “I’m throwing a ‘welcome to the club’ party, just so you know. Seven o’clock. Penthouse.”
“Okay,” and she watches him waltz away without another word. “He’s the weird one,” she mumbles to herself, but suddenly there’s a laugh above her.
Laura startles, and looks up. There’s a familiar blonde head popping out of the vent in the ceiling. He waves. “Hi, it’s, uh, Clint. Dunno if you remember.”
“I never caught your first name.”
“Oh.”
They’re just looking at each other in the ensuing silence, and Laura shuffles her feet with no idea what to say. “Uh,” she says intelligently. “So, how are things?”
“Peachy.” He flips out of the vent in an impressive show of both strength and flexibility, and lands a pace away from her. “Just got cleared for active duty, so, you know, all good here.”
“Cool,” she smiles. “I just graduated SHIELD basic.”
He looks off into the distance in memory, a glimmer in his eyes, “Ah, those were the days.” He waves one hand at her to get her attention, “C’mon. I’ll show ya around.”
She ends up spending most of the day in his company. The AI, JARVIS, directs her towards her suite, and Clint actually helps her unpack, chattering away the whole time about the upgrades to his bow and arrows, and she listens with interest, even if she has next to no idea about any of the technical details he’s raving about.
Clint takes her on a quick tour of the Tower - the labs where they find Bruce, who is also apparently the Hulk, the kitchen, living room with all the gaming systems, and the gym where Captain America and Natasha are sparring.
Their movements are all a blur - punches, kicks, she doesn’t know - and she feels equal parts awed and afraid at the sight. “Holy shit,” she blinks slowly, and she knows her mouth’s hanging open but she can’t quite bring herself to close it. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m a mutant.”
Clint snorts. “They could literally go all day,” and he crosses his arms, drawing her eyes briefly to the strain of his black t-shirt against his biceps. “Nat’s a beast, and Cap’s got stamina that can last from hell and back ‘cause of the serum.”
“No shit,” she turns back towards the match.
“Wanna give it a shot?” She swings her head back towards him questioningly, and he wiggles his fingers at her. “You can even use your voodoo.”
Laura laughs hard at that. “You sure?” She smirks, “You won’t have your bow.”
“Yeah,” and there’s a challenge glimmering in his blue eyes. “Seeing as you’re a baby agent and all, I think I have a fair shot.”
She smiles brightly at him in turn, “Lemme change first. Okay?”
“Sure, sure,” he nods and turns back towards the match. “I’ll be here.”
Laura frets over her wardrobe choices briefly - she doesn’t have much in the way of gym clothes, but still. She knows both her sisters would choose something skimpy, a sports bra and spandex shorts, maybe, but she doesn’t have that shade of confidence or disregard for others’ opinions. She settles on a pair of cotton shorts and a t-shirt, and tells herself not to think twice about it. It’s just a sparring match.
With a really hot guy, in front of a bunch of the Avengers, and her first debut of her abilities as one of them. Jesus Christ .
She throws her hair up in a messy bun, tosses on a pair of sneakers, and rushes to the elevator hoping she hasn’t taken too long.
Clint waves her over towards another set of mats when she arrives. It looks like he’s exchanged his combat boots for sneakers, too. And she feels heat touch her cheeks when he gives her a blatant once over. The expression his face settles on is both curious and contemplative. She’s not sure what’s brought it on until she comes closer and he gestures at her thigh,
“Nice ink.”
“Oh,” and now she’s definitely blushing. Laura looks down at the molton Mother Earth on her thigh and presses her fingertips to the artwork briefly. “This one’s my favorite.”
“There’s more?” He looks shocked, and she’s not so sure why. She hopes it’s not because of her tendency to come off as a Plain Jane, which she loathes and knows it’s kinda true all the same.
“Yeah, lots,” she shrugs and meets his gaze. “So. Sparring? Can I use the floor?”
He frowns briefly, and looks towards the sleek, polished tiles. “Don’t see why not, s’long as you put it back?”
“Alright.”
She brings the flooring up to coat her arms and hands in a protective shell that doubles as a blunt-force weapon. She smiles impishly at him. “Okay. Let’s do this thing.”
Clint hands her ass to her.
She doesn’t think it’s as bad as it looks, maybe. Natasha and Steve stop their match at some point, and they both end up shouting pointers at her, which she tries valiantly to follow while simultaneously blocking hits and attempting to keep her balance.
“Barton’s legs are a weakness - stay low!”
“Keep your shield up - up ! In front of your face!”
At some point Laura ended up fastening the stone of the tile in a poor mimicry of Captain America’s shield during the match, but even with it she’s constantly on the defensive with Clint. She’s not trying to overwhelm him with sheer power as she’d done with the aliens, but instead fight him on an almost even footing. It’s a struggle to even stay upright.
“Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker,” she spits. Her tendency to curse when exhaustion claws at her comes to the surface, and an irritatingly cocky smirk plays at Clint’s lips, which doesn’t help anything. “How the fuck do you even -”
“Maybe,” and he wedges an ankle around hers, pulling, and getting her off balance, almost toppling over, “if you’d stopped only payin’ attention to where you’re throwing around all that stone, and,” he slides her leg up and pushes with his hands against her shield, and now she’s definitely falling over, “look at your feet,” she falls and her tailbone aches even with the mats, “you wouldn’t be on your ass right now.”
She scowls up at him from the floor. “You are a combat specialist ,” she huffs and points one stone-covered thumb at herself. “ I’m a terrakinetic mutant. Don’t judge the stone.”
His lips twitch, and he’s obviously fighting a smile. “You’re still on your ass,” he points out smugly.
“If this were a fight over our sheer abilities , and not just an ass-kicking, things’d be a lot different, Hawk guy .” Admittedly, that wasn’t her best come back, but she’s feeling a little too embarrassed with Natasha and Steve looking on to put serious thought into it.
His lips twitch again and he pops one brow, “You sayin’ you’re holding out on me?”
“Well, of course,” she huffs.
He gestures with his hands, “C’mon then,” he goads with a shit-eating grin spreading his face wide. “Show me whatcha got.”
Laura doesn’t even bother standing, she just holds her hands out, palms down, and slides the stone of the tiles up onto the mats, crawling up first his shoes, then his legs, until Clint is encased in stone from the neck down. It took her about thirty seconds, and he didn’t even fight it, seemingly too shocked to move.
“There!” She declares smugly. “I win!”
He shakes his head ruefully, “Alright, I asked for that.” She can see his jaw muscles clench with effort as he obviously tries to move against his stone cocoon. “Okay, you can lemme out now.”
Laura shares a look with Natasha and Steve.
“For serious. Lemme out.”
She laughs.
“I’m not kidding! Guys !” His face is turning red and his neck twists with effort. “Seriously. Let. Me. Out!”
Laura’s face is wiped of all amusement at the pleading, desperate tone of his voice, and she raises her hands and disintegrates the shell to pebbles that fall at his feet. Clint is breathing raggedly and his hands clench on his knees while he struggles to catch his breath the moment he’s free. After silent, tense moments he suddenly straightens out and bolts from the gym, and Laura staggers to her feet, mouth open to call his name, but he’s already gone.
Natasha places a hand briefly on her shoulder. “I’ll check on him,” she assures gently, and she too leaves the gym.
She looks up at Steve, and he looks troubled. He looks over towards her and swipes at his face. “I-” he starts, and stops. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
This isn’t at all reassuring to Laura, and she wonders what the fuck just happened. What she’d done to put that fear into Clint’s face?
Guilt and shame eat at her while she readies herself for Stark’s party. She’d seen Natasha earlier on in the kitchen when she’d went for a glass of water - her emotions too strung high to allow her to eat - and the other woman had assured her Clint was okay. She’d said he’d experienced something traumatic recently, and she suspects the match triggered him. Laura had wanted to press for details, but a look from Natasha silenced them as quickly as they’d formed in her mind.
The redhead had placed a calming hand on her arm and said, “Barton likes you.” An unexpectedly soft smile tugged at the corners of her lips while she added, “Honestly.” She patted her arm, “Just give him time to sort himself out. Oh,” and a wicked light entered her eyes, “and his favorite color’s purple. Just so you know.”
She’s not too sure what her motivations were for giving her that little bit of information, but she’d used it to her advantage. Laura now has a small purple sapphire hawk sat snugly in her palm for an apology gift. But what if Clint is still afraid of her? What if he doesn’t want to see her, or worse? She supposes she can’t do anything if he is; she doesn’t know him well enough to know how to best approach him if he’s unwilling to speak with her.
Laura heads off to the party with a swirling of emotions rolling through her.
Everyone greets her heartily - especially Thor.
It’s almost overwhelming to be suddenly surrounded by so many heroes - some legendary, even. And then to know she’s now a part of a team of them? It’s a lot to take in.
Laura wanders the party, chatting with a lot of impressive people - scientists, CEOs, and even Agent Coulson is there, for some reason - and it takes nearly an hour before she spies him. Clint is sitting out on the balcony, feet dangling through the rungs, with a dog curled against his hip. She takes a moment just to look at him before she walks through the open sliding glass doors.
“What’s his name?” And she has to bite the inside of her lip when Clint looks up towards her. She isn’t sure what to make of his expression.
“Lucky,” he pats the dog’s head, rubbing behind the ears. “You can pet him, if you want.”
She tries not to look too eager when she crouches on the other side of the dog, venturing to sit with her legs curled under her after a moment’s hesitation. “He’s a sweetheart,” Laura says honestly after brushing her fingers through the mutt’s coarse fur and getting a little lick in return.
“Yeah, Lucky’s a little charmer,” Clint agrees with a soft smile. “Aren’t you boy?”
Laura fights a smile as the archer coos at the dog. “Hey,” she says, hoping she isn’t going to completely ruin the peace of the moment. “I’m real sorry about, uh, earlier. You know-”
“Hey, hey,” he waves one hand at her. “It’s okay, dude, you didn’t know.”
Her lips twist, “Still.” She pulls the little sapphire hawk out of her dress’ pocket, clenched in her fist. “I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to- to do anything to hurt you. You’ve been nothing but kind to me, and I shouldn’t have done that, even in a sparring match.” She holds out her hand, the little hawk shimmering in the light trickling in from the party, and says, “Here.”
“What’s this?” He asks curiously with a look of befuddlement on his face, and stretches out a hand. Clint’s calloused fingertips brush against her palm while he takes the small figurine, and Laura has to fight an involuntary shiver.
“A sapphire hawk,” she answers, watching his face closely enough to see the wide-eyed wonder enter his gaze. “I didn’t have a lot of time to synthesize that much purple sapphire - so I’m sorry it’s so small-”
“Wait,” Clint looks up at her, the purple figure reflected in his pale eyes. “You made this?”
She nods, wringing her fingers together in her lap. Something twists in her gut, old words from Professor Xavier about abusing power and using it for personal gain - but the hawk’s a gift, and it isn’t like she’s turning graphite to diamonds and selling them for profit. This is something deserved, and is as innocent as a gift can be. “The sculpting was the easy part,” she smiles shyly. “I just… thought you might like it?”
His laughter is sudden, bright, and so full of life that it instantly brings relief flooding through her veins. “Like it? I love it!” He grins down at the little hawk pinched between two fingers - the small bird sculpted in mid-flight with it’s wings outstretched over his fingertips. “This is so awesome ,” he looks up at her. “You didn’t have to do this, but thanks. This is so cool.”
Laura smiles happily at him, “I’m glad you like it.”
He holds her gaze, and she sees it when his expression turns into something… softer. “Hey, do you think,” and now she thinks there might be pink suffusing his cheeks, “that, uh, maybe I could ask you out sometime?”
The grin that overtakes her hurts her cheeks, and she hopes she isn’t blushing to badly either. “I’d like that.”