The White Dress ✅

The Hawk's Spider Part 5

Day 5: Write a scene that takes place on a farm.

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Clint thinks that he can read Pete pretty well.

So he knows something's wrong when he's quiet during breakfast and looking physically sick as he lets go of Clint's hand to join the other kids in the playground.

"Hey, are you feeling okay?" he bends down to his level, checking his temperature.

"I'm fine." He insists, offering up a weak smile as he bats away Clint's larger hand. "I just didn't sleep much."

"Do you want to skip school and go to the park?"

He laughs. "Miss has already seen me. I don't think I can just leave. Maybe you can pick me up at lunch and we'll play sick together?"

He gives a mock salute. "Yes, sir, twelve hundred on the dot."

It gets the reaction he wants and Pete giggles, the flush that spreads across his cheeks the one he likes seeing the most. He's not the best dad but he's not far from it, either, and he ruffles the boy's hair once before he sends him off with his lunch.

Still, Clint reads Pete like an open book and, in the past, that kind of behavior was a precursor to an incident so he calls in sick to work and his boss accepts it since, for the month he's been in the area, he's been an upstanding little worker ant. Tidying up the belongings they have doesn't take long and he's got everything they need in neat little boxes inside the car before it's eleven.

Which is lucky because the call comes at quarter past.

"Good afternoon, Smith residence, how can I help you?" he gets a little kick out of throwing someone off their game, especially since they're going to do the same to him.

The receptionist's flustered for all of two seconds before she catches herself. "Mr Smith, I'm calling about your child, Peter, he's been involved in a fight and we'd like you to collect him."

He's already in the car as he repeats, "A fight? Pete hates violence."

"Yes, well, that's not what we're seeing here. Get here as soon as you can, please." Her tone's curt and she hangs up promptly.

It's bad then, since, normally, he can charm strangers with just the warmth in his voice. The fact she ignored it means that Pete's done something awful enough for it to reflect onto him.

He doesn't like the possibilities running through his head.

The haste at which he gets to the school is actually quite amazing, especially considering he follows the speed limit and only runs through the red lights. Not that it matters, though, he's hardly going to be staying long enough for the council to prosecute him for traffic offences.

"Hey, little man." He's at Pete's side in an instant. "What happened?"

"They were bullying me. I got upset."

He runs a hand through Pete's hair, smoothing it out. "It's okay to be upset, Pete, you didn't do anything wrong."

The boy darts furtive glances either way, like the teachers aren't whispering and watching them in their peripheral vision. "I had an incident."

Clint knows. "No worries, eight year olds are allowed to crazy things, right? Want to tell me what happened?"

He tells him.

They cornered Pete in the boys' bathroom, and that makes Clint both understanding and angry. Pete's had enough brushes with violence that he knows being enclosed is bad. He was panicked and he doesn't realise that a few kids weren't quite the bad men he's faced before with their guns and their knives. Still, he doesn't blame him for it: tying them up is the clever thing to do and so what if they're too idiotic to get themselves free without injury?

It's not Pete's fault, it's never Pete's fault.

"It's okay. We'll give them a fake account of events, confusing enough to waste their time, and skip town, okay?"

"We don't have to," Pete says, "they didn't call the non-emergency number for the police. I know how that sounds now, they called someone else, mentioned the Finisher? He sounds like some sort of lame wrestler!"

It's a name he hasn't heard in years and he's glad for it because the Finisher, well, his name is synonymous with death and it was him who killed Pete's parents. Suddenly, it makes sense why no one's talking to them or going over how unruly his son is and, while he doesn't know quite how a middle school has connections like that, he knows they have to get out of there.

"Clint, what's wrong?"

"We have to leave. Now." The tone he uses leaves no argument.

It's telling when no one stops them, like they know the two of them can only run so far before they're caught. Somehow, not being pursued is always the worst part of moving around, because it's something he can feel creeping up at the back of his neck and he can't do anything about it. At least he knows how to deal with a firefight, he prefers that to waiting for the inevitable.

Pete buckles his seatbelt, straining in his car seat to see the road "Where are we going?"

"Oak farm, non-descript little place on the edge of town, there are documents we need there."

See, Clint's not stupid.

Yes, he was treated like a grunt but that didn't mean he wasn't noting down the location of safe houses or other information that was well above his pay grade and, quite frankly, he's been making sure that every place they move to has somewhere with a cache of weapons and money and passports. Oak farm is one example and he's glad for his preparation if he's going to be facing up against the infamous assassin.

In the end, it's a close thing.

Clint sees better from a distance and the thing with the Finisher is all hand to hand combat and, to be honest, he's on the losing side, younger and inexperience and wholly unprepared for combat. If he gets out of this, he promises himself he'll start going to the gym or something because, seriously, three kicks to the ribs shouldn't have him wheezing like a forty year old smoker.

"I heard great things about you, Hawkeye, I didn't think I'd be so disappointed."

He sneered. "That's some sad punching. You hit like a girl."

He's an archer and he knows how to aim true, even if he doesn't have a bow and arrow. Quite frankly, someone like the Finisher will never be insulted like that before so it throws him off his game for a second.

Which is long enough for Clint to roll and duck and reach for the gun kicked to the side. He brings it up, has it leveled and fires to hear the click of an empty chamber: something he really doesn't need now.

The Finisher's grin then will forever haunt his dreams.

He guesses he's lucky that he'll even live to dream again but, somehow, the webbing that shoots out to wrap around the other man's ankles doesn't feel like a victory at all. It feels like he's dragging a little kid into his battles and robbing him of his innocence so, no, the victory is tinged with defeat, too.

He sends Pete to the car, not wanting him to know what happens next and it's in no time at all that they're driving away from the farm with a stash of ill gotten money and blank passports. Because, once news reaches about the death, all of England won't be big enough to hide in.