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Life went on. That didn’t change when aliens came down through a portal in the sky, when her father died, and when she’d seen Hawkeye willingly plummet off the side of a skyscraper, equipped with nothing more than a bow and arrow.
Things changed, her perspective on life and what she wanted from it most of all. As did what her mother wanted for her, and what the world did too.
As young as she was, Kate knew that as she watched who she once considered to be her hero, her father, lowered into the ground next to two plots that’d already been picked out for her and her mother when the day they needed them someday came.
Now, she had a new hero, and a new purpose. A regime to uphold so that she too could be a hero, a mere mortal one at that, saving those who felt as helpless as she did that fateful day when the world forever changed.
She goes to her martial arts classes rather than play with unattended fire like she used to in the search for a rush, the likes of which included Karate, Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and Akito. Still leaving time for Archery most importantly, and fencing.
Adults liked to ask her how she did all that and schooling with only so many hours in a day. She usually stammers it’s not all in a day rather over the course of a week, even when something in her head understands the world and therefore time is different for her than it is for others.
Especially when her Mom decorates their penthouse with more and more lush decorations, and the gifts she receives on her birthday and holiday’s consist of stuffed animals bigger than her body.
Not to mention the equipment she was given for each of her sports was top of the line even though she was bound to wear them down enough that they would need to be replaced and often.
“Oh mommy buys your love, doesn’t she?” A Nanny had asked offhandedly with a sardonic laugh and look in her eyes that Kate is sure she sees in every Nanny’s after that. All of them thinking the same thing.
It wasn’t as if that wasn’t true, she’s young and smart, if not a little naive (and in a constant state of denial).
She knows her mom loves her, and she loves her mom but sometimes as Mom hands the Nanny over a credit card and tells them to let her go wild, Kate feels like one the items on the shelf she’s shopping for - even if she does appreciate how fortunate she is to be able to do such a thing.
The toy store today was unsurprisingly crowded as Christmas music drooled out through an outdated speaker painfully distorting the words.
It somehow was not drowned out by the masses of other children her age practically tearing the place apart.
Kate walks and peruses it all slowly, not only because the things she was looking for were often rare finds, but also she had archery after this outing, meaning her Bow was slung carefully over her back and she didn’t want it clobbered.
“Iron Man,” she hears the other children shout, which checks out as she looks over the aisles filled with merchandise for the heroes that had saved them all those few months ago, and anything even relating to the billionaire she’d once seen at one of her mother’s high profile parties drunk on champagne and scotch, had been picked over.
Not that she minded, it made the things she was looking for much easier to spot. Well, it would if they made much.
For some reason she couldn’t understand, finding things pertaining to her own personal hero were few and far between.
Mainly there are leftover Hulk items, and she wasn’t saying he wasn’t cool but personally Kate had no interest in Hulk Hands or toys that roared with wonky sound boxes.
The replica Mjolnir didn’t call out to her either, nor did the Widow Bites filled with foam darts, or the frisbee sized Shield that was too small to play with in any accuracy.
A frown takes up her small features as she continues along the aisle, scooting back as a few other kids and some adults run through to grab those very things that held no meaning to her, until she was looking at nothing more than empty shelves.
“I got him! I got Iron Man!”
“No-Give it to me!”
“I had it first!”
“Hahah it’s mine!”
“I got one too!”
Shoes squeak and Kate ignores the chaos in the aisle over where she could see a gaggle of kids holding boxes of an Iron Man action figure above their heads and out of reach from the other kids.
Some lady steals one right out of one’s grasp and heads off to the register while children and adults alike continue to cry, shout, and fight over the toy.
A toy that does nothing for her heart at all other than give her a meager hope that if Iron Man had an action figure, maybe, just maybe, Hawkeye did too.
Kate doesn’t immerse herself in the fray even when she knows she could clear it pretty easily, but she had a feeling her Nanny and least of all her Mother would enjoy her making a scene beating up other kids for a toy at the risk of their reputation.
The shelves hold a wheel of colors in the places that aren’t picked clean, and from what she can see through grubby hands, there was no purple, so she moves on grateful that she at least wouldn’t be trampled.
Each aisle she comes upon next is a bust, and the joy she had in this venture continues to sink with every aisle number. All until she reaches the back wall, where boxes upon boxes decorated with purple arrows and target’s stamped with bright yellow clearance stickers.
There’s hundreds of them, and not one missing. A sight second to seeing Hawkeye in the flesh jumping off a skyscraper, and even with her arrow puncturing the bullseye for the first time.
She smiles so wide it hurts, and the corners of boxes’ poke at her arms as she wastes no time in rushing forward and hugging a handful of them to her chest.
Kate’s never been happier.
Having successfully acquired an Iron Man figure for his kids because Laura absolutely insisted he not come home without it, he and Bruce shuffle throughout the store in search of the registers, having got turned around in the midst of stampeding children.
Clint’s more than ready to leave, only to be stopped by a hand on his arm. Bruce isn’t the most prone to touch out of the Avengers, so Clint stops and turns, giving the man his full attention.
Noticing the soft smile on the bespectacled man’s face, as his curly haired head inclines to the left.
The Archer follows the man’s gaze as directed, spotting a small lone figure with a bow on her back, amongst a wall of mini him’s, quite a few held in her wide open arms. He can only glean her profile from the side, enough to tell that her smile is tremendously wide and her eyes had closed in elation.
In all honesty, he hadn’t taken much offense to not seeing his figure in the aisles with the rest of the Avengers. Sure seeing the clearance sticker on them now and it wasn’t even Christmas yet stung, but seeing the effect that they had, he had , on one little girl, meant the world.
A Merry Christmas indeed.