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Kate’s head popping over the edge of the roof was not in any way surprising, and it would have been even less so if Clint had been slightly less drunk.
“Hey, Hawkeye,” she said, boosting herself up to sit near him. Her bow was strapped to her back, which was also not surprising, but kind of awesome. Clint’s lay next to him, propped at just such an angle that it was safe from sliding off the roof. There was even a bottle of wine in her hand. Very classy. Clint approved.
“Hawkeye,” he acknowledged, nodding his head and raising his glass of scotch at her. She rolled her eyes, but smiled.
“So Tony sent me with something cool to give you. I figured you’d be up here.”
Clint held out his hand and made a grabby motion.
“Say please,” Kate insisted.
Clint snorted. “Please.”
She pulled an arrow out of her quiver and held it out. “Tony says it’s a confetti arrow, probably. He was ninety percent certain it’s a confetti arrow. It might possibly be explosive instead. Anyway, he thinks you should shoot it out over Jess and Carol’s heads when they drive off on their honeymoon.”
Clint blinked at her, slowly.
“That sounds like the sort of really bad idea I would only consider if I were reaaaally drunk.”
“You are really drunk,” Kate pointed out, “and I pinned up some of the stupid wedding favors in the trees over there so we can test your drunken aim first. So you won’t actually hit either of them. Probably.”
“Would just bounce off Carol anyway,” Clint said. He sounded more petulant than he necessarily liked, but maybe that couldn’t be helped.
Kate’s grin only grows wider. “Hey, Jess is the one who dumped you for her best friend and then invited you to the wedding and insisted that you bring a date even though she knew you weren’t seeing anyone. You’re just lucky I took pity on you and decided to let you tote me around as arm candy for the evening.”
“Yeah, thanks for that,” Clint mumbled. “It definitely wasn’t the judgemental looks from all the party guests or the talk about Taking Advantage Of Your Youth And Hero-Worship that Steve tried to give me that drove me to drink.”
“Oooo, sarcasm,” Kate drawled, and she clinked her bottle of wine against Clint’s glass and then gulped some down. She waved the arrow at Clint a little, and he finally took it, setting it in the crevice between two roof tiles. He really would like not to drop it and set the venue on fire, because if Jess didn’t kill him Carol certainly would.
“Hey,” Kate continued, and the hard elbow she dug into his ribs belied her gentle tone, “We both know I’m not stupid enough to get sucked in by your dirty old man routine, Hawkeye.”
“Hawkeye,” Clint growled fondly, and pushed back a little. She made a show of wobbling and nearly falling off the roof, and Clint thought it said a hell of a lot about him that he never even tried to reach over, just in case she wasn’t joking.
“You’re the worst,” she huffed, when she finally regained her balance, or at least gave up on her act.
“You weren’t gonna fall,” he said, and he managed a small grin of his own.
“Shut up and take a shot,” Kate said, before taking another long swig from her bottle of wine. Clint was nothing if not obliging; he picked up his bow, stole a couple of nice, ordinary arrows out of her quiver, and squinted at the artificial tree line on the other side of the parking lot until he caught sight of the party favors she had pinned up.
Draw, breathe, release. His arrows arched up over the jumble of cars parked haphazardly below, and pinned three of the lacy white bags. One of them darkened with fluid, and Clint wondered if they had those fancy little bottles of bubbles in them. Jess had never struck him as the bubble type of girl.
“She pretty much had to invite me,” he said, trying his best to sound nonchalant. He took another sip of scotch. “All of our friends are kinda mutual friends, and there woulda been a lot of raised eyebrows if she hadn’t. And making me bring a date was her way of trying to make me feel better about the whole thing.”
Kate grinned at him, teeth flashing in the hazy light reflected back from the clouds. “And instead you ended up looking like a dirty old cradle robber and drinking away your sorrows.”
She nocked an arrow of her own, took aim, and released; her arrow split one of Clint’s down the center, which was ridiculous and ridiculously cool.
This was why she was totally his favorite.
“It was your prepubescent A-cups that really caught my attention,” Clint deadpanned, and she choked on her wine. He stole the bottle away from her, gulped down as much as he could manage, and made a face. Wine was gross.
“I’m a solid B, thank you very much,” Kate said, stealing her wine back, “And I was sixteen when you decided to steal my name back. Hardly prepubescent.”
“I was Hawkeye first, Hawkeye.” Clint couldn’t help the grin that stole across his face. He reached over and ruffled her hair fondly. She scowled at him.
“Hey, kid, thanks for coming,” he added, after a moment of fond shared silence.
“It was me or the dog,” she snipped, and she took aim again, hitting just above the previous arrows.
“Your turn,” she sing-songed at him, and Clint grinned a little recklessly.
“I was busy whining about my love life and Jess getting married to Carol instead of me.”
“Because marriage has always worked out so well for you,” Kate snarked, motioning at his bow again.
Clint split her arrow straight down the center.
“Like you have such a great record with relationships, girly,” Clint teased, grinning at her.
“Don’t be a dick,” she scolded, before she nocked another arrow and took the shot. This time it fell just below the neat set of split arrows.
“So how confident are you that the arrow is actually a confetti arrow?” he asked, casually. “‘Cause I think we’re obviously sober enough to shoot arrows at the brides.”
Kate eyed the arrow critically.
“Not sober enough to be stopped by the fact that this is a really, really bad idea?”
“I think Carol might actually kill me if I ruin their reception,” Clint said, also staring at the arrow, “And I know Jess will.”
“Confetti would be pretty cool though,” Kate pointed out.
“You are taking advantage of my drunkenness to tempt me into making poor life decisions,” Clint declared, looking up from the arrow to squint at her. “You and Tony.”
“What are the chances that it’s an exploding arrow?” Kate continued, though she looked a little smug over Clint’s accusations. “It even says ‘confetti’ on the shaft.”
“Back in the day, that was Tony-code for explosive,” Clint said. He raised his glass to his lips, only to discover that he had run out of scotch. He made another grab for her wine, which she deftly maneuvered away from him. “I wouldn’t put it past Tony to mislabel shit just to make me do something stupid.”
“You should do it,” Kate insisted, “If you don’t, I’m going to have to come up with something else really stupid for us to do, and it will probably make you look even worse.”
Clint tried to glare at her, but he was pretty sure it came out as more of a fond beam. Favorite.
Down below, the noise level rose, and after a second Clint realized that someone had opened the doors. Kate slithered down closer to the edge and peered over.
“I think they’re about to come out,” she hissed back at him.
“Huh,” Clint said, fingering his bow. “I dunno, if it explodes...”
“Now or never,” Kate said, shimmying backwards and turning to grin at him. “C’mon, you know you wanna. I promise I’ll vouch for you and blame Tony if it all goes to hell.”
Clint looked at the arrow, and then down at the ground, where the brides were indeed walking out to Jess’s badly decorated car. He looked at the arrow again, and then picked picked it up and took aim.
It arced gracefully over the newlyweds and exploded in a massive shower of ridiculous gold and red confetti. Both brides laughed, and Jess looked up long enough to spot him on the roof and offer him a pleased smile.
He gave a little salute in return, and she nodded her head at him and laughed, before leaning over to whisper something in Carol’s ear. Carol looked up, too, then, and offered Clint a nod of her own.
Someone shouted Carol’s name and they both looked away; Kate scooted over and wrapped an arm around Clint’s shoulder.
“Glad it didn’t explode on anyone,” she confided, and Clint leaned into her shoulder and laughed and laughed and laughed.
“You did okay, Hawkeye,” she said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Thanks, Hawkeye.”
And if there was deeply ridiculous semi-skinny dipping in the swimming pool later that almost got them arrested, well. Kate liked to take advantage of his drunken state to make him do stupid things, so it was clearly her fault.