“Any other advice for me?” she asks, slanting him a look he recognizes all too well.
“Nah,” Clint says, shrugging broadly and pulling his cocky bastard gold-medal grin. She’s probably the only person on the planet who’d appreciate it for what it is; projected confidence born of knowing no one else is rooting for him, that he’s in this alone. “You’re bright enough, Bishop. You’ve got this.”
“I don’t want got,” she says evenly. “I want gold.”
Clint calls bullshit, personally; she wants perfect. Wants his results, her own Clint Barton Games. “Don’t mean a thing if you don’t think you’ve earned it.”
She nods like she understands. Maybe she does. He’d been a dumbass at her age and he can own it now but back then, he’d figured it was him against the world. That caring about anything was a vulnerability he didn’t need, a weakness to hide and crush and deny. Dumbass really is the only word for it, but at least he knows where he went wrong.
“I’ve earned it,” she says, eyes lit fierce.
Clint doesn’t know much about her background, has only seen her shoot in clips on YouTube, but he can read faces well enough and he’s a decent judge of character. No doubt in his mind she has. “They’re going to try to get in your head,” he cautions. “The rest of your field, they won’t let you make it out of qualifiers without a target on your back. So you don’t let ‘em, but don’t shut everybody out, either.”
“I’m not worried about the rest of the field.”
He nods at her. “Right. Do me a favor, though? Make a few friends while you’re there?”
She arches a dark brow at him. “Like you did?”
That pulls a broad grin out of him. “Like I didn’t,” he corrects. Sighs a little and gives up a bit of his past he hasn’t even given Natasha. “You think it’s about winning, having that moment on the podium where everyone in the damned world has to acknowledge how fucking outstanding you are. And it is, some, but it’s pretty hollow if you don’t have no one to celebrate with you, right?”
“I think that ship’s sailed,” she says, dismissive, and he can only imagine that it has. Olympic-level archery’s a surprisingly tight bunch, national clusters of shooters who’ve known each other forever, and she’s as much an outsider to it as he’d been, the relative unknown poised to crush an awful lot of Olympic dreams in her upset for gold.
No doubt at all she’ll do it, either, and he knows the allure of that fuck you. Hell, he’d taken his medal and run without so much as a thanks.
“Not saying it’s got to be buddies with everyone,” he murmurs.
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Clint, Kate Bishop, gen 1/2
Date: 2012-08-09 04:01 am (UTC)“Nah,” Clint says, shrugging broadly and pulling his cocky bastard gold-medal grin. She’s probably the only person on the planet who’d appreciate it for what it is; projected confidence born of knowing no one else is rooting for him, that he’s in this alone. “You’re bright enough, Bishop. You’ve got this.”
“I don’t want got,” she says evenly. “I want gold.”
Clint calls bullshit, personally; she wants perfect. Wants his results, her own Clint Barton Games. “Don’t mean a thing if you don’t think you’ve earned it.”
She nods like she understands. Maybe she does. He’d been a dumbass at her age and he can own it now but back then, he’d figured it was him against the world. That caring about anything was a vulnerability he didn’t need, a weakness to hide and crush and deny. Dumbass really is the only word for it, but at least he knows where he went wrong.
“I’ve earned it,” she says, eyes lit fierce.
Clint doesn’t know much about her background, has only seen her shoot in clips on YouTube, but he can read faces well enough and he’s a decent judge of character. No doubt in his mind she has. “They’re going to try to get in your head,” he cautions. “The rest of your field, they won’t let you make it out of qualifiers without a target on your back. So you don’t let ‘em, but don’t shut everybody out, either.”
“I’m not worried about the rest of the field.”
He nods at her. “Right. Do me a favor, though? Make a few friends while you’re there?”
She arches a dark brow at him. “Like you did?”
That pulls a broad grin out of him. “Like I didn’t,” he corrects. Sighs a little and gives up a bit of his past he hasn’t even given Natasha. “You think it’s about winning, having that moment on the podium where everyone in the damned world has to acknowledge how fucking outstanding you are. And it is, some, but it’s pretty hollow if you don’t have no one to celebrate with you, right?”
“I think that ship’s sailed,” she says, dismissive, and he can only imagine that it has. Olympic-level archery’s a surprisingly tight bunch, national clusters of shooters who’ve known each other forever, and she’s as much an outsider to it as he’d been, the relative unknown poised to crush an awful lot of Olympic dreams in her upset for gold.
No doubt at all she’ll do it, either, and he knows the allure of that fuck you. Hell, he’d taken his medal and run without so much as a thanks.
“Not saying it’s got to be buddies with everyone,” he murmurs.
She snorts.