The Black Hawk | Yelena Belova & Kate Bishop Story

~Bow and arrow~

Kate had spent the last few days with Clint Barton, her new-found partner/friend and his family. She was warmly welcomed there and enjoyed finally being able to rest a little after the exhausting events she had experienced in the last few days.

Together with Lila, Cooper and Nate, the children of Clint Barton and his wife Laura, they often played soccer on the large lawn in front of the house or she taught them archery.
Even though it was winter right now, they enjoyed spending their time in nature and inhaling the cold fresh air. They only ever went back in when each of them had red cheeks and numb fingers. Inside, they drank hot chocolate or a cup of tea and sat in front of the chimney to warm up again.

This morning Kate had promised the children to show them some tricks with bow and arrow. She was excited; finally her lessons in archery were paying off, well except for last week, when she had also used it quite extensively. Not to metion together with the Hawkeye.

'Now I'll show you how to do a really cool trick, you put an apple on the fence post in front of the house and from a distance I'll cut the apple in half with this arrow. Even if it probably looks easy when I'm doing it, it is actually pretty difficult. When I'm done you can try it right away if you want to.'

The children nodded and Lila quickly ran into the house and grabbed a fresh red apple. She carefully placed it on a distant fence post, than she went back to the other three standing about 100 meters away from the target.

Lila had already done many archery exercises with her father and was sure that she could master this exercise with ease. But she was also interested in how the new hyper housemate Kate Bishop would do it. How great were her archery skills or if they weren't, maybe she could even teach her something about it. This thought made her start to chuckle slightly.

After she returned to the group, Kate gripped the handle of the light brown bow with her left hand, placed an arrow on the arrow rest, and pulled the bowstring towards her.

She squinted at her target, held her breath for a few more seconds and then let the bowstring slip from her fingers.

To her disappointment, the arrow flew past the apple and landed a few meters further in the snow.

Not long after, someone pulled the arrow out of the ground and walked towards the people in the middle of the field.

'I see you have already shown the three the negative example, that's also a very crucial part of learning, especially because that's the one point I can't teach them, so thank you Kate. But,' he said, 'what's more important is how you do it the right way.'

He then grabbed an arrow out of the case which was laid against a tree.

'Your focus in the shooting process should always be on building up and maintaining back tension.'
He straightened up, pointing at his back with his free hand. Then, like Kate did before, he laid the arrow on his bow he had brought with him in advance and drew the bowstring.
'The aiming just takes place in your subconscious,' he continued to explain.

Breathing slowly and calmly he waited about 3 seconds. The next moment the apple could be seen separating in the middle, then falling down into the white blanket of snow and continued sinking in until it was out of sight.

'Wow,' the black haired woman said. 'That was...great.'

'I think I remember someone once called themselves the world's greatest archer or did I mishear something?'

'Ha, ha... That was great, but your bow also has this laser thingy,' she answered the provocative question from her friend and pointed towards the bow in his hands.
'Mine is just regular, of course it easier for you.'

'Okay,' Clint nodded while laughing slightly. 'Give me your bow.'

'What?'

'Your bow, give me your bow...
Come on, I can't embarrass myself in front of the kids.'

He gestured her to give it to him.

'Fine,' she said. 'You'll see it is much harder than it is with yours'.

Without a word, the man took out two arrows. The first was shot straight in the air, the second arrow followed shortly after.

'Would you be so kind and take a few steps back.'

Soon the arrows landed with a small "cling" in front of them, one pierced straight through the other.
Nathaniel, the youngest child out of the three jumped in excitement.
'Wow! Dad, I wanna do that too! That's so cool! How did you do that?'
The archer smiled and ruffled the boy's hair.

Kate just nodded. 'Now you can all see what is possible with a little practice. I'm sure I can do that too in a few weeks,' she pointed to the two arrows on the floor. 'After all, I'm now an Avenger, so to speak.'

'If you say so. But be careful not to hit yourself, "Avenger", I don't want the police to trample my entire property, especially my lawn... Otherwise I'll send you the bill for it.' He picked up the arrows and the case.
'Now come on in, dinner is ready,'
he yelled while walking back to the house.