SHOTGUN | CLINT BARTON (REWRITING)

CHAPTER TEN

— chapter ten

CONFIDENCE WAS PROBABLY the single most notable signifier of power. It paved the way for control and, with it, a person would wield the ability to make most people instantly heed their commands. It was fascinating, really, how far a simple show of confidence went. It's like this: if a person was perceived as confident, they could control the possible outcomes of the situation; no one would question their confidence and in result, they would receive what they want.

At least, that's what Rosa thought.

There are specific types of confidence, too, that a person can possess; a higher ranking official, a sense of belonging and self-worth. As Rosa was wedged between Steve and Natasha, Clint walking on Natasha's other side, they possessed all three. Higher ranking official automatically went to Steve who, in his Captain America get-up, commanded the attention and respect of anyone and everyone who passed. Sense of belonging probably went to straight to Clint, who everyone had assumed would be out of the field for a while, but no he belonged there the same as the rest. Self-worth went to the two women who were waking alongside them because, while they weren't the first people to compliment themselves or appreciated their worth in total, this job was the thing they were best at and they damn well knew it, too.

Agents gaped shamelessly at the four of them as they walked, admiring the untamed confidence that rolled off them. They approached a quinjet, ignoring the refusal of the occupying agent. It seemed the agent had been trusted with piloting the jet and he seemed adamant that none of them could use it. Steve held up a hand already tired of the objecting and decided that waiting around for protocol would waste more time than it was worth, "son, don't."

To say the two women were summoning as much self-control as they could in attempt to not laugh at the encounter was a massive understatement. Even Clint struggled to fight off the smile that played on his lips.

As the agent scuttled from the jet, Clint and Natasha took their respective places as the pilots. In a way, for Rosa at least, it was nostalgic and somewhat comforting the three of them being in a jet together, almost as if they were geared up for an ordinary mission. It made the fact that they were walking into something so far from what they were trained for almost bearable. Clint and Natasha have always co-piloted with each other, so much that it was almost compulsory for them to sit in those seats and feel the controls under their fingers. 

As they were embracing compulsions, Rosas' hands edged to her knuckles slowly cracking them. It was a subconscious act that she often carried out when she was nervous, and considering her current situation in heading out to fight a God-like man she was rather nervous.

This paired with the consistent humming noise she made was increasingly irritating for Clint. The humming was habitually subconscious and something that occurred even when she wasn't nervous, still it annoyed him to wit's end. It didn't help that when she was nervous, the humming got worse. At the beginning of their relationship, he hadn't even notice. But, sitting in the jet they were the only sounds he could focus on. "Rosa, can you stop?"

"Stop what? Being nervous?" She retorted, rolling her eyes at the back of his head, much to Steve's amusement.

"No, being annoying."

The jet had reached the city, looming over dozens of buildings that littered the city. Natasha groaned, a front of not missing hearing the two of them argue against each other, but really quite glad that they were. Although, there would be a time and place for them to return to the dynamics they sued to uphold and heading to a fight they weren't prepared for certainly wasn't it.  "Shut up, now," she snapped at them half-heartedly and, then, into the comms, "Stark, we're headed North East."

A small smile stretched onto Rosa's lips at her snapping.

Tony, currently clad in his Iron Man suit, was headed towards his tower. It was a flash of red and gold with a fleeting trail of Chitauri behind him. His intentions were to lead them astray, eventually bailing around his tower but he had to be quick. "What, did you stop for drive-thru?" Despite the situation they were in, Tony held his usual level of sarcasm; something Rosa was thankful for. The snarky comments that he often made broke the tension of anything. She found it oddly reassuring that he was being sarcastic, even if it helped nothing. "Swing up park, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you."

Clint manoeuvred the quinjet towards Stark Tower, his eyes trained on Loki fighting Thor. Natasha pressed several buttons, successfully activating the quinjets defence systems and aiming a minigun at Loki.

In retaliation of them firing the aforementioned gun, Loki fired a blast of energy at them using his sceptre. From what Rosa could see, which wasn't very much, an inky blue matter had engulfed part of the quinjet and set it alight. Preferably, Rosa would rather be in a vehicle driven on land, but in this case, the quinjet has sufficed. Now, considering the consequences of taking the quinjet, she was evidently freaking out.

"We're going to die before we even stand a chance, aren't we?"

"You're such a drama queen," Clint muttered as he expertly controlled the jet that was spinning slowly out of control. For a moment, he agreed with Rosa, to an extent, as the jet began to drop slightly quicker than before.

As the jet had dropped into the destroyed streets, with turned-up roads and smoke everywhere, all Rosa could think about was the small apartment she had left behind that had been most likely destroyed by one of the Chitauri. She would give anything to be able to sit in that apartment, watching the fairy lights that decorated it, than being here facing fucking aliens.

The ramp of the jet lowered, Steve running down it quicker than the rest with Rosa close behind. The four of them stood on the broken concrete below the jet, with their respective weapons in hand. Admittedly, in any other situation, Rosa would have laughed at the ironic movie-style poses they seemed to have taken. It was like someone had pulled them straight from a film scene.

Steve nodded to the chaos around him, "well, we're not dead."

"Yet."

a u t h o r s n o t e:

previously, this chapter was written off a script. as were several others. they're not up to a 100% correspondence with the film, however, i am relatively happy with how they have turned out.

i'm sorry about the very late update, it took me a while to be happy with it and then i completely forgot to actually publish it. i was going to do it last week and then got sidetracked with rereading the throne of glass series... for like the tenth time.

also, i'm currently working on other fics that i want to publish — one of them is going to be a hermione granger one and will be published soon (i have a proper schedule figured out!).

thank you for reading!! have a nice day//night!!