Not just another dude with a bow

As far as Clint was concerned, Operation Distract Kitty From Punching Fandom in The Face was going quite well. They'd seen the Grand Canyon, learned exactly what a "dry heat" meant, and now they were lounging in their hotel room.

"I'm really glad no one evil has blown the Grand Canyon up," he said, from where he was sprawled out on the bed. "Or filled it with acid or done something else awful." That was a totally rational thought when you were exhausted from being touristy.

[For she who is with him!]

Clint didn't know why he'd thought going back to New York for Christmas would be a good idea. Seriously, he was a grown-ass man, why did he still fall for that "holiday magic" crap?

( In which Clint does not have the start to a joyous-ass Kwanzaa. )

[Taken from Hawkeye #6. For the girlfriend, to be continued in the comments!]

Waking up in a warm, comfortable bed was still kind of an amazing thing to Clint, so he wasn't in a rush to dig himself out of the covers right away when he woke up. He knew Lucky would need a walk at some point, and that would mean real clothes instead of pajamas and going outside, and he wanted to put that off for as long as possible, so he burrowed even deeper into the comforter and--ended up accidentally bumping into someone else. Had he had a sleepover last night?

[For the sleepover buddy!]

The trip back from Madripoor had been blessedly uneventful, and Clint didn't protest quite as much as usual when he was whisked off to medical. Even after whatever the hell Derek did to him, he was still sore in quite a few places--bulletproof vests were awesome but getting shot point in the chest still sucked a lot--and by the time the nurses were done there wasn't much of Clint not covered in bandages. He needed to buy stock in companies that made gauze one of these days.

But hey, a few cracked ribs and a bruised liver were a small price to pay to get that tape back. Now everything was fine, right? Right.

[And thus ends the flist spam! NFB due to distance! Open for his brave rescuers!]

After turning into an animal on the radio, spending a solid week as a hawk, and then turning back into a human on the radio--a naked human, and god he hoped that kid wasn't going to be scarred for life--the chilly walk from the radio station to Kitty's apartment actually wasn't so bad. It was a quick trip, thankfully, and Clint had managed to grab enough crumpled radio notes from the squirrels to cover what needed to be covered in public.

He was pretty sure he'd passed some of the old ladies in town on their way to Water Aerobics, but he'd done his best to keep his head down until he got to Kitty's door, at which point he used his head to knock because a) he was still covering what needed to be covered in public, and b) banging his head against something was a necessity at this point.

[For the wonderful girlfriend!]

There were very few birthdays that Clint could look back on happily, and today had started off as par for the course. It had been months since Loki and his invasion and still, every once in a while, Clint fell back into having nightmares. It was the same kind of dream every time - he was back on the Helicarrier, but this time, he killed everyone who stood in his way. For a while, it was just Natasha, and sometimes Tony or Steve. Then it became Natasha and Kitty getting taken down together. Last night, for the first time, Natalie had been in the mix, and Clint had tried not to interpret that too much when he'd woken up.

Thankfully, unlike the first months after the invasion, Clint had a furry distraction now. Lucky had taken to sleeping in Clint's room almost immediately, and had started sleeping on Clint's bed as soon as he was able to physically get up there. Clint didn't mind - Lucky rarely made noise and almost never barked, which was also something Clint tried not to analyze too much, knowing who his previous owners were - and on mornings like this one, Lucky seemed to know that Clint needed him at his side instead of curled up by his feet.

After a few minutes of regulating his breathing and running his hand along Lucky's fur, Clint knew he wasn't going to fall back asleep. It was late enough that he could justify getting out of bed and, remembering what day it was, he plopped himself down on the couch with Lucky and a whole box of cereal. Later, there would be coffee straight out of the machine's pot because hey, birthdays were for doing that kind of stuff without being judged, right?

[Open for the housemate and visitors and such! Yes, I gave him Jeremy Renner's birthday so I'd remember when it was.]

No matter what Natasha's searching-that-she-totally-hadn't-been-doing might have brought up, Clint had made plans to see Kitty again last night, and they'd turned into plans for her to spend the night as well.

This dating thing was pretty awesome, he had to admit.

Clint wasn't surprised when it seemed like he woke up first - he'd never been very good at sleeping in and SHIELD had knocked any lingering ability right out of him - but he didn't mind, because it meant he could try to sneak in some snuggling without waking Kitty up. It was good ninja assassin practice, really.

[For the girl in the bed!]