October 16, 2006

“Natasha!” All Clint could see was wide dark green eyes and dark red staining slim hands. He was firing an arrow before he knew it, and he looked up at his target moments before the arrow exploded. The girl’s hands gently prodded the skin around the arrow, and she didn’t even have time to scream before the explosion.

“That was Holbrook!” Natasha was staring at him, with a silver chair leg still embedded in her thigh and a few pencils in her abdomen.

“The Holbrook we’re supposed to be saving?” he asked.

“So much for recovering her in one piece,” Natasha said as she yanked the chair leg out. Two years, it’d been two years since he made a different call and talked the redhead into joining him. Five years since being recruited by SHIELD. This wasn’t the first mistake he’d made, but he could still see Andy’s dark hazel eyes pleading with them to save her little sister.

“Shit!” There was a gurgled groan near the wreckage of the explosion, and a hand clawed its way out of the rubble.

“She’s alive.”

October 27, 2006

“Hey, kid. How are you feeling?” Nearly matching dark hazel eyes met, and slim shoulders rose and fell with a shrug. Andy gently sat down on the edge of her sister’s bed and grabbed a thin hand with her own.

“I’m fine,” Jo whispered. The harsh sound burrowed in Andy’s ears and made her want to cry. Little Jo shouldn’t look like this, shouldn’t sound like this. Where was her sister’s sweet laughing voice? Where were her sister’s bright eyes?

“How did the debriefing go today?” Andy tried for a casual tone, but it obviously didn’t work. Jo’s eyes narrowed, and Andy tried not to wince at the dark circles under them. Jo pulled her hand away and crossed her arms under her wasted chest. Andy was the small one in the family; Jo had their mother’s curves at the age of thirteen.

“I’m not tellin’ you anythin’, Andy. It’s over.” The voice was like a growl, and Andy stood up with a heavy heart. Jo spent hours locked in a room with that Director Fury guy, and sometimes with the two agents that did a horrible job of saving her. Andy has no idea what they talked about, and she doesn’t know what happened to her little sister. All she knows is that her sister is now a telepath and is slowly falling apart.

“Will you at least eat something?”

“Will you stop thinkin’ about how fucked up I am?” The two sisters stared each other down, and Andy slowly left the room.

November 2, 2006

“You can eat more than that.” Andy’s soft voice carried across the small cafeteria, and Clint looked down from his spot in the rafters. The two sisters were sitting at a table away from everyone else, and he could see them easily from where he was sitting. The girl, Josephine, sipped a little soup from her spoon and glared at her sister. Andy looked away and down at her own food. Clint shifted a bit and then looked over at the girl.

Thin fingers rubbed against her temples in a move that Clint had seen countless times over the past few weeks before moving down to prod at her throat. The outer scars from the explosion were gone, but the girl’s voice was rough. Clint might’ve felt bad if Natasha could walk at the moment, but she couldn’t so he didn’t. Still, it’d been weeks and the girl still looked horrible. She was too thin, the dark circles under her eyes showed that she didn’t sleep, and she kept running hands over her shaved head. In the pictures Andy showed them, before the rescue, the girl looked completely different. Before, she had curves, a smile that lit up her dark eyes, and long brown hair.

“I gotta get outtta here,” she mumbled before rushing off. Andy was halfway out of her seat with a hand stretched towards her sister when Clint looked back down, but she was already gone.

November 10, 2006

Finally, the damned debriefings were over. For her, at least. Jo ducked her head down and once again hated the fact that her hair was gone; she could use its heavy weight to hide behind. She also wouldn’t mind having some of her own clothes. The black pants were a size too big and kept slipping off her slim hips, the shoes were pinching her feet, and the white shirt was too thin and left her feeling a little over exposed. Still, she jumped at the first chance of going outside. During the debriefings, she had to stay inside. Being forced to stay in one building was just like being held captive, and she needed to breathe. Andy had arranged a flight back to New York for them the next morning, but Jo didn’t want to spend another second in that damned building.

The neon sign was like a benediction, and Jo rushed towards it. The bar wasn’t anything to brag about, but it wasn’t filled with people that knew she’d been held captive for over a year and could now hear their every thought. The looks, of mixed pity and fear, were starting to drive her a little crazy. Jo plopped herself onto a creaky stool and slapped a hand against the bar. The old barkeeper just looked at her and waited. Jo ordered a shot of Jack and a Budweiser, and she scratched a nail against the old wooden counter as she waited. She was halfway through the giant mug when someone sat on the stool next to her, and she lazily let her head roll to the side.

“Of course it’s you,” she huffed. The sound of her own rough voice was still a shock, but she was getting used to it.

“I’m not here to start any trouble,” he said without looking away from her eyes.

“Did Fury send you?” The guy’s eyes narrowed, and Jo felt her cheek twitch.

“I’m here to get a drink. Whatever she’s having.” The bartender nodded and walked off, and the guy turned to meet her eyes again.

“I tried to apologize to your friend.” Jo wasn’t sure why she said it, she didn’t owe the guy anything, but it was out now.

“Yeah? How’d she take it?” The smile that curled her lips felt foreign, stiff.

“She shot me in the head.” The guy’s sudden laugh tickled her face, and Jo felt her nose scrunch up at the feeling. The guy turned to take a sip of his drink, and Jo watched his throat work as he drank. “How long have you worked for SHIELD?”

“Little over five years.”

“You don’t look very old.” She caught the number twenty-two in his mind, which was only three years older than her own nineteen years. So he started working for SHIELD when he was seventeen. Jo scrubbed a hand over her prickly head and picked up her mug again. She motioned for another shot, and the guy did the same. She caught his eyes, and a challenge was issued.

Eight shots later and halfway into another mug, the atmosphere was much more relaxed. Jo had an elbow propped on the bar so she could face her new drinking buddy, and the position kept one hand held protectively against the side of her head. Her new drinking buddy was mirroring her position, and their knees kept knocking together. Jo’s smiles were coming easier now and didn’t feel as stiff.

“Clint Barton.” Jo stared down at the extended hand and tapped a finger against the top of her head before straightening up. She grabbed the guy’s…no, she grabbed Clint’s hand.

“Jo Holbrook.” The guy nodded, gave her hand a good shake, and smiled at her.

“So, you can hear all my thoughts?” Jo normally got pissed whenever someone asked her that, but she was feeling more relaxed. Must be all the shots.

“Not really. It’s all…fuzzy. Maybe, if I tried, but I like not listening. You know?” Jo signaled for another shot and wondered if she was making any kind of sense. Probably not.

“Yeah, I get that. You’ve got enough shit to deal without worryin’ about everyone else’s baggage.”

“Exactly! Like I want to know what someone is thinkin’ of havin’ for supper. Fuckin’ idiots,” Jo grumbled. The bartender dropped off six more shots, and the two gave each other a quick grin before shooting them back. Clint finished first, and Jo reached over to give him a high-five in celebration. They both chased the shots with the second half of their mugs, and Jo swiped a hand across the back of her mouth once she was done.

“I don’t dance anymore,” Jo whispered. Clint swung around to look at her, and he caught her sitting with her back propped against the counter as she looked out over the bar. There was a small space cleared between some tables, but no one was dancing along to the old jukebox.

“Why not?” Jo rolled her head to the side and looked at him as she tried to think of an answer that made any sense.

“I used to dance with my mom when I was little, but she died a few years ago. I haven’t danced since.” Her hazel eyes darkened even more, and Clint raised a brow.

“Then dance,” he said simply. For a moment, Jo just stared at him.

“I will!” She kicked her shoes off, slipped off her stool, and placed the borrowed shoes on her empty seat. Clint watched as she stumbled to the middle of the empty space and slowly started swaying by herself. Clint took one more shot and then slipped off his stool to join her. She jumped when he grabbed her hands, but she gave him a shy little smile as he pulled her closer to him.

“I had someone I used to dance with too, but I haven’t danced since she died either,” he explained. Jo just nodded and didn’t say anything. She wiggled her fingers, and Clint let her hands go so she could wind her arms around his neck. They listened as the music started, and he caught Jo’s smile as Nancy Sinatra started singing.

“Bang bang, I shot you down. Bang bang, you hit the ground. Bang bang, that awful sound. Bang bang, I used to shoot you down.”

To an outsider, they probably looked like any other couple that knew how to slow dance like middle schoolers. Their steps were easy as they moved in circles, and every once in a while they would catch each other’s eyes and smile. An outsider would miss all the important things about the dance though; they would miss all the things that made it special. Clint’s angry eyes were clear, and the guilt was gone. This dance was an apology, from both of them. An outsider wouldn’t be able to see the way that Clint’s fingers danced over Jo’s pronounced hipbones under her borrowed shirt; they wouldn’t know that it was a silent request to start eating again. An outsider wouldn’t notice the way that Jo’s fingers clung to the back of Clint’s neck or see the little indents her fingernails made on his shoulders.

An outsider would watch the way Clint’s arms wound completely around Jo’s thin body and would smile at the way he pulled her close so that her bare toes were braced against the tops of his shoes. They wouldn’t be able to feel the delicate tremors in her thighs or feel her hot tears against an unscarred throat. No, an outsider would miss everything important. Clint’s lips brushed against the growing hair on top of Jo’s head, and Jo laughed through her quiet tears as she dropped her cheek to her partner’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Jo whispered. For just a moment, Clint wondered what she had sounded like before. Her sister said she had a beautiful voice, but now it sounds like she’s been gargling gravel.

“Don’t thank me.” He felt her rubbing her face against his shirt, and her face was mostly dry when she looked up at him.

“Will this be our last dance?” Clint’s fingers tapped a slow rhythm against the knobs of her spine, and he wondered what it would be like to dance with the girl in the picture. The one with the dimpled smile and soft looking curves.

“This is just our first dance, Josie.” Her eyes narrowed and her cheek dimpled, so Clint took it as a win. She lowered her head to nuzzle her cheek against his shoulder, and he rested his head on top of hers as they kept dancing. Neither of them noticed the old barkeeper snapping their picture, but it didn’t matter. For just a moment, they were the only ones there.

“Bang bang, my baby shot me down.”

Notes

Short and sweet. This is the beginning of Clint and Jo's dancing friendship; I just had to write it out.