25 Unicorn Street, Thursday Evening

[so_hawkward]

When you made your living running around with a bow and arrow, Valentine's Day ended up being kind of a weird holiday. People at SHIELD had liked to make Cupid jokes to Clint all day, all seemingly thinking they were the first ones to do it, and Clint had to admit that he almost missed the teasing. Tony, of course, hadn't missed out on the opportunity to text remarks to Clint, until Clint had replied that he needed to get ready for his date. Apparently, the surprise that Kitty was still dating him was enough to shut Tony up.

Yeah, Clint was kind of surprised too, shhh.

It wasn't often that Clint had a girlfriend on Valentine's Day and was in the same time zone as her and wanted to actually spend the evening with her, so he figured he was supposed to make this dinner pretty special. Hopefully, ordering in Chinese instead of pizza would count.

[For the girlfriend!]

Comments

[so_hawkward]

Clint focused on getting his chicken into his mouth--successfully, thankfully--so he didn't have to try to feel bad for Derek. "If you ever have to deal with that, you know I'll help, right?"

[throughaphase]

"I know," she said with a little smile. Which was only in part due to him managing the chopsticks there. "You got me through the Stryker stuff without a breakdown or me flipping out on you. That means you're a keeper."

[so_hawkward]

"Ooh, I like the sound of that," Clint teased. "The keeper part, not the near breakdown part. I hope you can keep that going."

[throughaphase]

"I'm doing good at that so far," Kitty assured him. "And I like the keeper part a lot, too. I want to keep that going, too."

[so_hawkward]

"You're a keeper too, putting up with all my crap," Clint said. "Sometimes, it seems like everyone here's got crap, and it's just a meter if finding what you're willing to deal with."

[throughaphase]

"I think that's pretty much true anywhere you go." At least, it was where she came from. "Though yours really hasn't been hard to deal with. This is by far the easiest relationship I've ever had."

Which, she knew, might be at least partially because people weren't constantly trying to kill them both here. Imagine that.

[so_hawkward]

"Oh good, I'm not the only one finding this to be deceptively easy," Clint said with a smirk. "I thought relationships were supposed to be harder."

[throughaphase]

"Not supposed to be. I think you're supposed to be with people where it can be easy. But we work, and we don't have all this horrible stuff happening constantly to stress us out and cause fights..." Hello to that insight into her previous relationships... "I take it as a good sign."

[so_hawkward]

"The island definitely stresses me out sometimes," Clint admitted. "I think it also helps that you tell me stuff. Which I know makes me a huge hypocrite since I don't like to talk, but..."

[throughaphase]

"You don't like to, but you do it," Kitty pointed out. "You've never refused to tell me anything when I've asked."

[so_hawkward]

Clint hadn't thought about it that way. "Well I don't want to lie to you. What'd be the point?"

[throughaphase]

"I appreciate that, too," Kitty said. "A lot of the time people just say they don't want to talk about it or everything's fine and it doesn't help anything."

[so_hawkward]

"I don't necessarily want to talk about things, but you also don't judge me for my answers," Clint said. "It's easier to talk to you about some stuff."

[throughaphase]

"I'd never judge you for being honest. And you know I'd never make you talk about anything you didn't want to, right?" She didn't want him to feel obligated or anything.

[so_hawkward]

"I know," Clint said, smiling softly at her. "So far, you haven't touched on anything I'm really uncomfortable with. And the same goes for you, you know."

[throughaphase]

"I know. There's not much I'm uncomfortable with, though. Enough time in therapy with a stranger means telling you things that you should probably know about me anyway isn't that big a deal," she admitted.

[so_hawkward]

"Aww, see, you're good and actually did therapy when you were supposed to," Clint said. "I tend to avoid shrinks at all cost."

[throughaphase]

"Um. They kind of made me or I'd have gotten kicked out of school?" she said, a little shyly. "Are people suggesting therapy to you or something?"

[so_hawkward]

"Yeah. For the alien invasion thing." Clint focused on picking up another piece of chicken so he didn't have to look at Kitty. "I kind of can't get my job back until I do it."

[throughaphase]

Kitty'd had enough clues by now to have suspicions about some things, but this was something she hadn't expected. It wasn't like superhero teams sent their people to therapy. "You lost your job because of it?" she asked slowly.

[so_hawkward]

"I didn't entirely get fired," Clint said, stabbing the chicken a few times to try to get it to stick to the chopstick. "But paramilitary groups don't like having people on active duty who might not be entirely right in the head. Or who might still have an undetected touch of mind control." Not that Clint thought that was a problem, but he knew some folks at SHIELD were still worried about him.

[throughaphase]

"So you are in SHIELD," Kitty said, not sounding surprised at all. "But it's not like Loki is even still an issue there, right? Not that I think any of that's true about you, but it doesn't seem like they have that big a reason to be paranoid."

[so_hawkward]

Clint winced a little, even though he knew he could trust Kitty with that kind of information. "He isn't an issue as far as we know. But... I still messed with a lot of people. Don't tell anyone about the SHIELD thing?"

[throughaphase]

"I kind of started wondering at Halloween and didn't tell you till now. I won't say a word," she said with a smile she hoped was reassuring. "So why won't you go get checked out?"

Not that she exactly wanted him to, because he was never allowed to leave, but.

[so_hawkward]

"I don't like shrinks," Clint said, possibly a little sharper than necessary. "If they were just gonna make me talk about Loki, that'd be one thing, but they're not going to stop there."