WHAT: Kate lets Eddie live out his elvish archer fantasy WHERE: New Asgard beach WHEN: Earlier this month, prior to the daemon plot WARNINGS: Talk of death STATUS: Complete
“Alright, so, just like this.” Kate grabbed Eddie’s hips and adjusted his stance. She wasn’t used to teaching someone taller than her; Elsa had been just an inch shorter than her whereas Eddie had a couple on her. But she’d been doing this for a long time. Height, body type, weight — none of it really mattered as long as you learned how to use it correctly.
They were back on New Asgard’s beaches, where her targets from her time living there still remained. She had thought about taking them back to the house when Yelena had been here helping her pack up the cottage, but as nice as their backyard was, it wasn’t the best for target practice. So, instead, she’d left them here and returned every once in a while to train, usually with one of her sisters; Nat was no Clint, but she could give Kate a good run for her money and always stoked that competitive fire.
Eddie was here to stoke a more specific flame. She really did enjoy spending time with him; he was a good, sweet guy, who had been totally onboard with her I need casual sex plan without hesitation. Neither of them were in serious relationship mode. She had just been involuntarily ripped from one and still missed Elsa like crazy every day, and she knew there was a certain someone Eddie was lusting after, too. So, this arrangement had so far been working well for them.
But Kate wasn’t a complete ass. She wasn’t against straight-up Netflix and chill, but she was open to making a friend, too. Friends did things other than sex, and she was more than happy to share her expertise with him when he’d expressed an interest.
“Now drop your elbow.” She pressed on the knob of said elbow to lower it. “This is gonna sound straight out of a cheesy martial arts movie, but you sorta have to… let the arrow become an extension of your arm. So, relax just a little but keep your grip steady.”
Eddie had never been one for relationships. In general, they just didn’t appeal to him, but also, they’d just never made sense back home. It was easy enough to find hook-ups – he’d been frequenting the nearest leather bar since he was able to drive himself out there – but getting into a steady relationship when you were a queer kid in small town Indiana in the 80s was a lot trickier, and aside from Chrissy, he’d never been interested in any of the girls at his high school. So it would figure that the first time he was actually interested in pursuing a relationship, in a place where it wouldn’t be quite so impossible as it always had been, it was with a guy who was, mostly likely, straight. Even if he was bi, like Steve had begun questioning, Eddie was pretty sure that he’d be at the bottom of Steve’s list of options.
It wasn’t going to stop him from flirting obnoxiously, but he wasn’t holding his breath or anything. And he sure wasn’t going to be celibate, waiting for Steve to fall victim to his charms.
Kate, luckily, was on the same page. He didn’t think that she was likely to fall for him, and she was looking for the same thing he was: no-strings-attached sex. And, she was actually kind of fun, which was a definite bonus. He’d met her properly for the first time at the metal show with Peter and Glimmer, and had talked with her more when they’d gone out for pizza before their first hotel rental, and now, she was letting him live out all his elvish archer fantasies.
“Right, I am one with the bow, and the bow is one with me,” Eddie said with all the sagely wisdom he could muster. He’d watched enough movies and read enough books that he thought he knew the general mindset, but having Kate there to actually correct his form was a definite bonus.
He inhaled, and then released the string on the exhale. It wasn’t a bullseye – pretty far from it – but it did hit the target with a satisfying thunk that he could hear from even here, and he couldn’t help but let out an excited whoop, hopping excitedly. “Did you see that?” he asked, turning to grin at Kate. “At this rate, I’m going to be shooting down orcs like a pro.”
Kate laughed and offered him a high five for his victory. It may not have been a bullseye but that took a lot more practice. That was pretty good for their first session. Plenty of first-timers missed the target altogether. She remembered her first lesson being complete chaos.
“Live your best nerd life, dude.” She grinned, reaching into the quiver slung over her shoulder to hand over another arrow. She wasn’t much of a D&D nerd; she appreciated it, but she’d never really had the time to devote to it. “But I’m pretty sure shooting down orcs for real would be frowned on, just so you know.”
“Right,” Eddie said, shooting Kate a grin that might have nearly been sheepish. “You’d think I’d know better. I’m pretty sure Frank, the guy who makes deliveries at The Art of Expression is an orc. Or maybe an ogre.” Eddie had never asked, and there was a lot of overlap between the two, depending on the source material. “Though I wouldn’t be too surprised if this place gave me something to practice on sooner or later.”
He took the arrow, nocked it, and then tried to get back to the stance that Kate had shown him. “How’s this look?” he asked. “Feel free to check out my ass while you take a look.” He gave it a wiggle, just for good measure.
Yep, that was Kate’s point there. The citizens around here were all sorts of varied species. She didn’t really think that Eddie was going to shoot orcs for real – totally just a joke – but they were part of everyday life here. They lost a little bit of that scary vibe when the only orc you knew was a big green guy in a purple-and-black FedEx uniform.
“It’s a pretty great ass,” she agreed with a hum, giving it a quick squeeze before she grabbed his hips again. He was just a little out of position, but that kind of shifting was normal. A few more corrections and he’d start to settle there more naturally.
“See, now you’re just looking for excuses to touch me,” Eddie teased, shimmying a little when Kate put her hands on his hips, but he let her adjust his stance again. He closed one eye to line up his shot. “So how’d you learn to do this anyway? Or why, I guess? It’s very cool, by the way. In case I haven’t said that yet.”
He took his shot – the arrow didn’t land anywhere near his other one, but it was a little closer to the bullseye, albeit on the opposite side of the target. It occurred to him, belatedly, that most bonafide superheroes had some sort of painful, traumatic backstory, and added, “You can tell me to shove it, by the way, if you don’t want to answer.”
There definitely was some pain and some trauma in Kate’s backstory, but it had been a long time. She had gotten past the worst of it, and while she missed her dad daily, she liked to think she’d have made him proud. But given some of the choices he’d made, she wasn’t even sure she knew him like she’d thought. Same with her mom – it was all a mess, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t tell Eddie the short version.
“Nah, it’s fine,” she chuckled, handing over another arrow. “My dad died when I was a kid. Our world was invaded by aliens, and there was some destruction. He was a casualty.” She took a breath and shrugged. “But, anyway, that same day, I saw Clint. He’s my mentor, the OG Hawkeye. He and the rest of the Avengers were trying to put a stop to the invasion. And he was…incredible. Totally human, all he had was a bow and arrow, and you’d have thought he was invulnerable. He saved me and so many others, and I just knew that was what I wanted to do, too.”
It had been her entire life’s pursuit since that moment. Part of her had never imagined it coming true, but Clint finding her had turned her whole life upside down in some of the best ways.
Eddie shot Kate a smile, a little tight around the edges but genuine enough. He’d always thought he’d have been some great hero if it came to it, protect the little guy, all that, but when push had come to shove, he hadn’t been much of a hero at all.
He hadn’t run away in the end, but he hadn’t been invulnerable either. He managed to lure the demobats away from the gates and away from Dustin, but then he’d gone and died. In Dustin’s arms, no less.
He hoped that hadn’t fucked him up.
“That’s really cool, Kate,” he said, nocking the new arrow. “I mean, not your dad, or the alien invasion.” Well, okay, the alien invasion sounded sort of cool, but only in the ‘big nerd storytime’ kind of way, and not in the way of actually living through it. Turns out, things that sounded cool on paper weren’t actually all that cool in real life. “But that you saw something you could do and went ahead and did it. Who knew the whole hero thing would be such a turn on?”
“I didn’t really get a chance to test it out,” Kate chuckled, “but yeah, right? I mean, I already did pretty well just with the archery thing, honestly.” Mostly with girls, if she was honest; she tended to have better luck with women, although she’d had her share of interested guys, too. “I mean, look at this.”
She pulled her bow out of her hip pocket and shook it swiftly open. It was Clint’s, actually – Vallo had just gifted it to her recently, and she had switched it out for her own bow as her main weapon – and turned it horizontally. She nocked three arrows in, and after taking a moment to line up, she released and watched all three group up dead center on the target.
“Definitely hot,” she beamed proudly. And that had been with the least amount of effort she could muster.
“Oh yeah, definitely,” Eddie said; his eyes dancing. It was the sort of thing someone might have done if they’d rolled a nat 20 in D&D, or something that he’d have read about in a fantasy novel. Not something that he’d ever thought he’d see in real life. “How about,” Eddie said, letting his eyes slide down Kate’s body and back up, “we give up on the archery lessons for now so that I can show you something hot?”
Kate smirked, flicking her wrist so her bow snapped back together and she could tuck it back into her pocket. “I like the way you think, Munson.” She knocked her shoulder against his, fluttering her eyelashes at him dramatically as heat surged in the pit of her belly. “Let’s snag a spare cabin, c’mon.”