Chapter Text
You heard his bark before he came barrelling into your legs.
“What the—” You caught yourself on the lamppost as Lucky hopped up onto his hind legs and pawed at your thighs, panting excitedly. His coat was longer and shinier now, his tongue a healthy pink. Absentmindedly, you reached down to scratch behind his ear. “Where the heck did you come from?” you mumbled.
“Guess who’s back.”
You whipped around.
Kate pushed off the brick wall with a smirk. “And that’s the last time I’m ever quoting Eminem. You’re welcome.”
“Katherine!” You lunged at her, ignoring her wince. “You didn’t tell me you were coming back.” You couldn’t help the slightly accusatory tone to your voice. Absence really did make the heart grow fonder.
“You’re familiar with the concept of surprises, right?” she said. She gave your back a pat before pulling away but you kept her at arm’s length. She wasn’t as tanned as you were expecting but there was definitely more colour to her cheeks and something else about her had changed. Maybe she had grown up.
“How was LA?”
“It’s a whole story,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Definitely needs a brunch.”
“What about drinks?” you said. “I’m actually on my way to the bar to meet Jessica right now.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Pass, but you have fun. Snapchat me if you guys end up fighting.”
You rolled your eyes. “For your information, we’ve actually gotten pretty close the weeks you’ve been away.” Lucky nudged you and you bent down to hug him. “I take it you haven’t been to Clint’s yet,” you said, nodding to the dog.
“Neither have you from what I’ve heard.” She crossed her arms. With her feet spread apart and her head tilted, you wondered if she had been practicing some heroic poses.
“Who’d you hear that from?”
“I have my sources.”
You sighed, getting to your feet and dusting off your hands. “Look, Kate, from what the girls tell me, he’s finally got his shit together. Just proves we’re better off without each other.”
“You really think that?”
Lucky leaned against you, his tail wagging in the air.
“I swear, all you ever wanna do is talk about Clint, Clint, Clint,” you muttered.
“Hey, you make me.”
You squinted at her. “How?”
“If you didn’t have such a thick skull, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” She patted Lucky’s head. “You stay here, boy. I’m off.”
“What?” You blinked as she began to walk down the street. “Kate, hey! I’m going to the bar!”
She just waved over her shoulder.
With a huff, you looked down at Lucky, who looked up at you, the epitome of blissful ignorance. “Fine,” you relented, “but you’re staying outside.”
You were already halfway to the bar before Kate had interrupted you. The air was warm and still but neither you nor Lucky were bothered, strolling down the sidewalk as the city serenaded you with the metal rustling of shops closing up and other partygoers laughing in the streets. People stopped you to pat Lucky, some calling him a good boy, some pouting at his injured eye. Lucky welcomed them all.
You scratched your head when you arrived at the bar. “She could have at least brought your leash,” you sighed. “Where the heck am I supposed to leave you?” You looked around, making eye contact with the bouncer in front of the door, who stared at you warily. You glanced down at Lucky again. “Stay.”
He blinked.
You bent down to push on his tail until he was sitting down next to the fire hydrant. “Don’t move. I’ll be back in an hour.” You ducked into the bar, praying that he would just fall asleep and that Jess wouldn’t be in too crazy of a mood.
The bartender caught sight of you and greeted you with a wave, then nodded to the end of the bar where Jessica was already sat with a gin and tonic. As you made your way over, he mouthed, ‘Usual?’ and you nodded with a smile before taking the seat on Jessica’s left.
“Hey, sorry, were you waiting long?” you asked.
“Nah.” She kissed your cheek. “How are you? How was your day?”
“Same old. Actually, I bumped into Kate on my way over here.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. “I thought she was on a road trip to find herself or something.”
“Well, I think she found herself.”
“Ah, to be young again,” she sighed longingly, making you snort.
“I know. She just dumped Lucky on me. I had to leave him outside.”
“What, right now?”
You nodded, massaging your temples. “It’s okay. He’s a good boy. He won’t go anywhere. How was your day?”
“Oh, you know—” she downed her drink—“same old.” She proceeded to show you the new bruises and scars she had added to her collection, causing the bartender to clear his throat as he arrived to hand you your glass.
“Thanks,” you said with a laugh.
You and Jessica went back and forth, trading stories of what had happened since the last time you caught up. Her next order was a strawberry daiquiri just to spice things up and, halfway through the night, a bachelorette party stopped by for their pub crawl and you were made to listen to their drunken karaoke. You actually didn’t mind, it got a good laugh out of you, but Jessica winced and stood up.
“I’m gonna bounce,” she said loudly into your ear. “You stay though.”
“No, I’ll come,” you said, polishing off your drink. “I have to check on Lucky anyway.”
She pushed you back down onto your stool. “I’ll take care of him. You stay.”
Confused and dizzy from the alcohol, you blinked as you watched her snake through the crowd. The bartender served you some water, for which you were grateful, so you stayed where you were and sipped the water as it grew later and more people flooded in, filling up all the seats next to you.
You hadn’t wanted to come here. Sure, it had become somewhat of a regular haunt for your group so you understood why Jess suggested it, but you hadn’t been here in a while and you’d planned not to return. It held too many memories. It reminded you too much of a night three years ago when you had met a car crash of a guy.
“Can I have the weirdest drink on the menu, please?”
Your spine snapped to attention and your gaze slithered across the bar top until you were looking at the man beside you. He had a hearing aid curled around his ear. When he turned to gaze at you, his eyes softened.
“Hey,” he whispered hesitantly.
You glanced away. “What are you doing here?”
“Jessica told me to be here. Plus, you forgot this.” He dropped a book on the bar between you. It was the American Sign Language guide you had left at his apartment the day you’d stormed out. You could feel his eyes on you as you stared at it, reading the words on the book cover over and over again for lack of anything better to think about. Your mind was blank. “I’m sorry I fucked up,” he went on quietly. “I’m sorry I always fuck everything up.”
Something in the way he said it made your eyes water. Alarmed, you turned your face to try to blink them away without him noticing, grinding your teeth together so they wouldn’t spill.
Clint sighed when you didn’t say anything and you heard his stool scrape across the floor. “This was a bad idea.”
“No.” You snatched his wrist. The two of you froze at the familiar yet unfamiliar touch and you looked down at where you were joined together because you couldn’t bare to look into his eyes just yet. “You didn’t fuck anything up,” you whispered, almost too soft for his hearing aid.
He was about to say something but the bartender interrupted him, brandishing a hideously purple cocktail and a slight smirk. “Enjoy,” he told Clint before sauntering off to take care of someone else. The two of you stared at the drink he had left behind, already sweating in its glass. A slice of pineapple rested on the bed of ice atop, as well as a novelty umbrella. You couldn’t help the chuckle that cracked out of you. Clint glanced at you with a bit of a smile.
“I’ll shotgun it if you tell me to.”
“You’re dumb.”
His smiled turned goofy and, in the ensuing brain freeze and regret, while the people doing karaoke screamed something about Shrek and launched into a Counting Crows song, you were forced to lead him out of the bar hand-in-hand. Lucky wasn’t next to the fire hydrant so you texted Jessica as Clint held onto the streetlight and tried to moan the pain away from his head.
‘He’s at the apartment,’ she replied. ‘Have a good night.’ She ended it with an orange heart emoji, which unnerved you.
“I’m fine,” Clint announced, blinking hard and shaking his head one last time. “I’m fine now.”
“Why are you like this?” you said under your breath.
He didn’t say anything, just looked at you, blue eyes studying every inch of your face in case you were about to leave again. They flicked down when you began to walk.
“Come on,” you said, glancing at him. “I’m taking you home.”
Nothing was said during the walk to his apartment. You let yourself drown in the sounds and smells of New York and wondered, every time Clint bumped into you, whether he would just bite the bullet and hold your hand. He didn’t and you stopped in front of his door, not knowing what to do next. Maybe he was right. This was a bad idea. In the time you had spent apart, he had gotten so much better. He had gotten hearing aids, he looked less tired.
“Do you want to come in?”
He never used to ask. He never had to.
“I—”
“You should,” he said, not looking at you. “Please.”
“Because you asked nicely,” you muttered, entering before him. Lucky perked up at your footsteps and came over to greet you as you looked around the apartment. It was probably the cleanest you had ever seen it, though you still spotted the errant sock and you could tell he was still drinking his coffee straight out of the maker. At least the food in Lucky’s bowl was actual dog food.
“You want tea?” you murmured, but you didn’t wait for him to answer.
In the time it took you to cross the floor and enter the kitchen, you had managed to scare yourself. It was like you’d had no effect on him whatsoever. It was cruel to wish he had spent the weeks without you in mess and misery—that wasn’t what you wanted—but it hurt to see that he seemed all the better for it instead.
You had turned on the kettle and were rifling through his drawers when an arm shot out to open the cupboard above you, where there was an old box of Darjeeling you had bought and kept here ages ago. He left it on the bench in front of you and you picked it up, examining it as you turned it over in your hand. You signed ‘thank you.’ It was the only one you knew.
His eyes melted as he studied you. “You’re right. I’m not your crutch and you can’t solve all of my problems,” he said, jumpstarting your pulse. You stared hard at the counter. You knew you had to talk about it eventually but that didn’t mean you were ready now. “I didn’t think it was possible but I got my shit together without you.” He touched your elbow, turning you around so you would look right at him. “And I still want you.”
Your eyes widened. “Clint—”
“So don’t tell me that what we have is screwed up. Don’t tell me the past three years have just been meaningless s—”
He stopped to catch you when you flung yourself at him. You hooked your chin over his shoulder, looking out at the apartment you used to spend so many nights in, usually after a relationship gone wrong. “I’m sorry,” you spoke into his ear. The feeling of his hands slowly falling to your hips made you shiver and he must have realised because he tightened his grip. “I’m scared.”
“Of?” he said softly.
“How much this means to me.”
He pulled away to search your eyes. “You made it look so easy to leave.”
Your heart broke at his expression. You bit your lip, then surged onto your toes and kissed him. The only thing you could hear was your blood pounding through your veins. Your eyes were squeezed shut and you weren’t even moving. He allowed it, reaching up to cradle the back of your head, slanting you to his liking. The edge of the bench dug into your skin so you blindly walked him over until you were both tripping onto the couch. To be back in this place, back on these cushions, back in his arms—you cursed yourself for ever trying to deny what had been building between you.
Clint’s lips left yours to taste the rest of you, filling your nose with that same pear scent that had you closing your eyes and giving yourself to him.
You couldn’t remember when you fell asleep but you woke up on top of him, your face buried in his neck. You were scared to move in case it woke him but then you registered his thumb on your shoulder blade rubbing back and forth. Gingerly, you lifted your head. Clint peeled his eyes open and reached up to trace the bridge of your nose with his pointer finger. As your eyelashes fluttered from the sensation, he swiped his hearing aid off the coffee table and fixed it on.
“Morning,” he murmured. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine. You?” Your eyes trailed to his mouth.
“I think you broke my back.”
“I think I’m in love with you.”
He faltered. When you glanced away in embarrassment, he cracked a grin and collected you more tightly in his arms. “God, I hope so.”