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Clint feels the presence of the Imps before he sees them, sensitive as he always is to both Darkness and foreign minds. “Incoming,” he warns into the comm, and Kate holds up a thumbs up in acknowledgment from her hiding spot behind a crate down below.
“Firing up the engines,” Nat confirms. “Leave the cargo if necessary.”
Clint contains a small smile at that, at how far she's come from the ruthless woman he met so long ago. The addition of Kate to their group has been a blessing in more ways than one, but the way Natasha has softened into the role of an older sister is definitely something Clint feels grateful for.
Still, he knows Kate is rolling her eyes down below, and he readies a charge in his blaster as he watches her back because he knows that now she really won't back down from achieving their objective.
That…may have been Natasha's point as well, if Clint is being honest. The girls are even more competitive and ruthless together than they are apart.
Kate loads the crates onto a nondescript cargo cruiser and Clint hops down from his perch, a quick burst of the Force softening his landing by her side. He can feel the way she's rolling her eyes, even muffled by the beskar of her helmet, but before he can snark at her something pressing catches his attention.
Urgency and sudden intent focus, minds heading in their direction--and fast. “Let's go,” he orders, and Kate hops on next to the crates, blasters at the ready, as Clint straddles the cruiser and tears away.
The chase is exhilarating, and while they're ultimately successful, they lose one of the five crates in the process of escaping back to the Ghost without a tail.
Kate is all raucous cheer over a mission (mostly) well done, but Nat watches Clint warily whenever Kate isn't looking.
When Kate finally goes to bed, Clint doesn't bother making Natasha ask. Instead, he puts his head in his hands and says, “Someone Force sensitive was there. Not an Inquisitor,” he cuts in quickly. “But definitely Imperial.”
“That's going to be trouble,” Nat remarks, and it's ominous enough even without the way her words resonate between them in the Force, truth and warning in every sound.
“Yeah,” Clint agrees. He dredges up a small smile. “But we're good at trouble.”
Natasha hums in response, not quite agreement or disagreement--just acknowledgment. “Get some rest,” she advises.
He nods and heads off to his bunk. He knows better than to tell her she should sleep too, just like she knows he'll lay down but he won't sleep, too afraid of the memories that will haunt his nightmares in the wake of this mission.
Clint meets the ISB Agent for the first time on what should have been a stupid supply run. He’s surrounded, and Kate is unconscious, and even if Natasha tries to reach them, she won’t be in time.
“Ghost One,” he says into the comm, unwilling to use her actual name where it might be overheard.
“Do it,” she confirms.
He needs to. There are no other choices. Clint carries his saber for this exact reason–as a last ditch hope, one final chance at survival.
More than half of Clint’s life has been just that–a desperate attempt to survive for one more cycle. The lightsaber that flies into his grip might keep him alive for that much longer, sure, but once the Empire catches wind of a Jedi? He won’t survive much longer than a cycle at best.
The lightsaber is damnation as much as it is salvation, and yet when Clint finally lights it up, allows himself to connect to his kyber like he hasn’t been willing to risk in over a decade, he feels… whole.
The Agent tilts his head, just a small fraction. “A Jedi?” he asks. “I thought they’d hunted your kind to extinction long ago.”
Not so long ago, Clint thinks, because it was well within both of their lifetimes. The Agent isn’t entirely wrong, though; fifteen years since Clint’s family were decimated by Order 66, and every second of them has felt like an eternity of pain, loneliness, and fear.
“Not yet,” Clint says, and he dredges up a cocky smirk from somewhere. “You think you’re enough to finish the job?”
The fight is exhilarating. The Agent is either stupid or has some sense of honor, because he doesn’t order the guards around them to fire. Instead, he faces Clint one on one.
Clint’s djem so is rusty, because all the katas in the world for practice don’t measure up to real use in the context of a fight, but it’s enough to eventually disarm the Agent.
He looks up at Clint through narrowed eyes, the blue of Clint’s blade casting shadows across his face, and orders, “Fire!”
“Karrabast,” Clint curses, and he whips around to deflect the bolts suddenly raining down on him.
Their shuttle, the Phantom, rockets over the tall buildings around them and sets down nearby. Clint deflects the bolts of energy back at the troopers firing, sending them diving for cover, and grabs Kate’s unconscious form before the stupid Imps can think of grabbing her instead.
Nat throws open the hatch, and Clint can’t deflect bolts while carrying Kate, so he uses the Force to give him an extra burst of speed and strength and prays that it will be enough.
It is.
They make it to the Phantom, Clint shutting the hatch as Nat is already lifting off.
His gaze catches and holds on the Agent’s until the hatch has completely shut between them, and this time it doesn’t even need to be said aloud for the Force to sing around Clint with the certainty that he hasn’t seen the last of this man.