To Die For

I made sure to disappear as quickly as I had reappeared, but the security system clicked in. I didn’t really know what it was, but a red light flashed beside him. Through the drunkenness, he spun around, 9mm cocked and ready to fire.

Yet I don’t think he had any intentions of firing. The smirk on his lips, that lopsided smirk that went with the sleep in his eyes, was a bit amusing.

“Alright, come on out,” he said. “I’d hate to have to shoot you. Your cousin would probably kill
me.”

Of course he knew it was me—Ebony or me, that is. Who else did he know that could disappear like that? Sure, he didn’t know we were both in here, but he knew one of us had appeared and disappeared.

I reappeared wearing a smirk much more sober than his. When his blue eyes lit up, I giggled. “Well, well. If it isn’t Hawky boy. Honey, you look like shit. Did my cousin finally break your heart? Told that woman to do it ages ago. Just made it worse for you to drag it out. She always was nuttier than a fruitcake.”

His eyes narrowed a bit, but I could see the corners of his lips twitch a little. I knew why. He wanted to smile. He told me I was a charming individual, or something like that. Still, he felt like he needed to be mad at me, so that’s how he acted.

“Don’t play dumb, Evory. You know your cousin is in DC with Steve Rogers.”

Seeing how quickly he recognized me as Evory, not Ebony, made my heart start to flutter in like a chicken in a mud hole. Most people couldn’t separate us . . . us being identical twins, after all.

I quickly recovered and made a face. “Really, Hawk, it don’t make no sense to me. I didn’t really picture those two as a thing. They ain’t no Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert.”

Hawk took a bit to just stare at me, eyes slightly wide, before he moved at all. After, ya know, his moments, he lowered his gun, unloaded it, and rolled his eyes. “Whatever. We’re not talking about this.”

I shrugged. “Suit yourself. Wanna talk about something else?”

“Not really.”

Like he knew it would, and maybe like he intended for it to, it made me frown. “And here I thought we got along so well last time.”

Just the mention of the word “last time” brought a spark to his eyes, a spark I had hoped for. Last time we saw each other, Natasha was stressed. So Hawk brought her to Ebony and me, and the four of us just got really drunk at this club. Natasha wasn’t much of a dancer, and Ebony was already dancing with some random hot stranger, so Hawk and I, well, we danced. Really intimately, to be totally honest. And when Natasha was in the bathroom, he kissed me. It was obviously the alcohol, since he was in love with Natasha, but man was it intense. We ended up making a trip to the bathroom ourselves, but I managed to stop it before it got too carried away.

And the weird part was, the next morning, it was like nothing had changed. He still teased me about being short. I still teased him about being a goober. I mean, we were still the same. We didn’t let the vodka laced macking ruin anything.

“Well, yeah, I’d say we got along pretty damn well,” he murmured, but as his bright blue eyes met mine, there was more to it than drunken lethargy. Now, he looked rather happy and confident—almost cocky. “If I remember correctly, we almost got really acquainted.”

“Too bad we wasn’t totally drunk,” I said, and admittedly, I meant that. How many nights had I thought about it after? It wasn’t because I felt anything for Hawk because, I mean, he was in love with my cousin. That was a dead end street there. But he was sexy . . . and there were so many sparks when kissing that night. What if it had moved past kissing?

He didn’t say anything to that, but I could see he didn’t actually disagree, which was surprising. When I was pulling away at the club, he muttered, “Right. How would I ever explain that to Tash later?”

But now . . . he was free. Free from the worry of what Natasha would think about him. It wasn’t any of her business who he rolled in the sack with, and it wasn’t her place to decide who with either.

Which was why he smirked again but still didn’t say anything. He just let his eyes start roaming my kinda tightly clothed body.

Momma woulda knocked a knot on my head if she saw me walk outta the house like this, but I did haveta wear all black.

I hadn’t changed much in the year since he had last seen me, other than a haircut that had pretty much grown right back to where it was when we last saw each other. I mean, there were a couple tattoos he could see that were new, but mostly, I was still just the same girl he got drunk with that night.

So why was he looking at me like he was? Like he had never seen me before?

I heard two people behind us, but the way Hawk’s eyes locked on me and started to glow a little . . . I didn’t really care to see long. With a simple glance over my shoulders, I saw Bruce Banner and Tony Stark, both gawking at me.

Hawk, however, immediately grabbed my attention again when he sighed. “How is it that you’re even hotter than your cousin?”

“Which one?” I laughed. “I got more than the bunny rabbits out in the farmhouse, which lemme tell ya. Those buggers like to fuck . . . a lot.”

“The only one I’ve met.”

My eyebrows rose. “Hmm, well, I suppose that makes sense.”

While Hawk grinned at me, Tony walked over and propped his arm on Hawk’s shoulder with his eyes roving my body as well. “Damn. What’s the emergency? Sconge get in the way?”

When I crossed my arms over my chest and smirked at Tony, recognition flashed across his eyes. Tony and I had never met, so I didn’t know why he recognized me.

Natty and I didn’t look that much alike.

“Wow. One of the twins, cousin of Natasha,” he murmured. “Tucker, right? I’m gonna guess Evory. I thought you both were banned?”

I rolled my eyes and looked back to Hawk, in his drunken and muscled up state. Last I saw him, he was a bit rough around the edges and innocent. No more of that . . . muscle had grown underneath his skin, and the stubble along his jawline was more of a turn on than I imagined.

But I didn’t get lost in his jawline or North Carolina blue eyes. Instead, I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Banned? Here I thought Natasha demanded S.H.I.E.L.D. never bring us in. I thought we had a choice.”

“Not if she has anything to say about it,” Bruce scoffed. “Trust me, she’s not someone you wanna mess with.”

“You think she’s bad?” Hawk asked. “Mess with this one. The wrath of Evory is far worse than the wrath of Natasha could ever be.”

I smirked. “I’m flattered you remember. I thought all that Jack you drank last time clouded your judgment.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Not quite. Seems you just run into me at my worst.”

“Well, honey, if this is your worst, I’d love to see your best.”

This caught him off guard, made those blue eyes open up to their fullest. While he stammered over himself, tried to search in that drunken mind of his for a coherent sentence to form, I giggled and danced beside to Tony.

“Mr. Stark, I say, your security is flawed,” I said. “I practically walked right down here.”

“Doesn’t count,” he informed me, but he still walked over to the computer in the back corner. “You can disappear.”

“How is it that you know so much about me?” I asked, looking now to Bruce as he rubbed some sleep out of his eyes. “Sorry to wake you, big guy. I didn’t expect Hawk to be down here. I planned to wait until a half decent hour.”

“You wouldn’t know what a decent hour is,” Hawk snorted, finally back in the state of mind where words could come out. “Look, Evory—”

“Seriously, you don’t have to keep calling me that,” I interrupted, and while he cocked an eyebrow, waiting for whatever I had to replace it, I gave him a cute little smirk and stepped closer to him. I knew from personal experience that he was a sucker for my wide green eyes, so I batted them a little and started playing with the line of his shirt. “Call me Evvy.”

Back to incoherent babbling. Damn, Hawk was fun.

“That’s cute,” Tony called from across the room. “Jarvis, how can we make this system Evvy proof?”

“She phased through the walls, sir,” Jarvis said. “We’ll need motion sensors in the metal of the walls and doors.”

I shook my head. “Won’t work. I kinda actually disappear from reality. I break all motion sensors.”

Tony frowned. “Well, that complicates things.”

I gave him another innocent smile. “Sorry, Starky. Fortunately for you, I don’t think there’s anyone else out there like me.”

“I’m sure Ebony is equally hard,” he scoffed. “What is it she does?”

“She morphs into the shadows, so I ‘pose it’s just as hard to secure around.” I scrunched my nose.

Hawk’s eyes tightened a bit as he watched me start looking around myself. Though my eyes weren’t on him, I could see him out of the corner of my eye. “Where is she, by the way?”

I knew she was in here. Call it twin telepathy, but I knew. We could sense each other, a sixth sense if you will.

So when she came out of the shadows behind Hawk, I wasn’t surprised. Bruce and Tony gawked at her, but Hawk, being drunk and watching me, didn’t notice at first.

And when he did . . . . hell, that was priceless. The man let out an almost girlish scream and jumped five feet away from my smirking sister, in her five foot glory. We had decided to dress in all black, from head to toe since we made vampires look tan, but unlike me, she had straightened her deep red hair with the bright blue tips.

I had a thing for our natural curls, and I didn’t want blue in my hair.

So, seeing her standing right behind him dressed in all black—down to the detail of black smeared around her eyes—scared him.

Ebony giggled as she danced over beside me, slapping me a high five on the way. “God, Clint, you’re far too easy.”

He had to take a few moments to catch his breath, but he didn’t speak before taking another huge swig of his whiskey. “Why are you two here?”

“We’re bored,” Ebony told him, letting out a sigh. “After leaving the farm and explorin’ the world with Natty, we had to get real people jobs, and after seein’ how big the world is compared to Dozier, waiting tables and modeling is just shit.”

I glared at her but decided to quickly change the subject when Hawk’s eyebrows rose. “What she means to say is that we have all these amazing things we can use to help people, so why waste what we were blessed with?”

Ebony shrugged her shoulders but nodded a little. “Then there’s, ya know, the delight in pissing Natasha off to no end.”

“That’s always a plus.”

Notes

The lyrics are from Tonight Alive's song Welcome.

So, being a huge Hawkeye and Captain America fan, of course I read far too many articles about the Captain America: Winter Soldier movie, like, months before it came out. Before the release date was even finalized.

Well, upon reading articles, I found a picture from the set that kinda gave me an idea. Pissed me the hell off as well, but it gave me an idea.

For those of you who haven't seen Cap 2, I'd stop reading now.

The part on the escalator? Where Steve and Natasha kiss to hide from the recon team? Yeah. That's what I saw pictures of, and I was a bit irritated. Not that I had anything against Natasha, nor do I have anything against Steve having a love interest. Really. When I'm not writing about Hawkeye having one, I'm writing about Steve having one.

What irritated me was how incompatible they seemed. In Avengers, we didn't learn much about her, but what I did learn was that she didn't seem to mesh well with Steve. Cap 2 changed my perspective on this point to where if they had gone with a Steve/Natasha pairing (I know, not in the comics) then I would've actually enjoyed it.

About as much as I would've enjoyed a Clint/Natasha pairing, to be honest. Which I adore. <3

Point is (after way too much rambling . . . ) I got the idea to make a Hawkeye story based on the concept that Natasha and Steve hit it off in DC more than they did in the movie, and instead of her trying to hook him up with a woman at the end, they end up together. So, of course, Hawk is devastated, but he quickly moves on from it, as he doesn't seem like the type to dwell on emotions much.

Sorry. xD Way too much rambling, but nonetheless, you know where the idea to pair Natasha and Steve came from. x3

Also, random little note. I live in the South. This is actually how some of us talk, so if you're from the South and get offended, I'm sorry. I hear this kinda stuff every day, and I talk like this a lot of times, too. It doesn't make me a hillbilly, and I'm sorry if it comes off that way. Really, I am. That's not what I'm intending.

I just wanted a girl with Southern roots as the main character. No biggie. Really, Evvy is quite brilliant. Ebony and Evvy both are. :3

So, point of this rant? Please don't take it offensively. I've met really smart people around where I live that talk just like this. And those of you who aren't from the South and think the characters are stupid? Nah. They're not. Trust me.

Enough ranting! Story! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. :) Let me know what you think, yeah? :)