Who Needs Powers?

Chapter 15: Panic Attack

Katie was so excited about being a hero like her brother. Clint had spent a lot of time talking her up after she and Steve had dealt with jerks, telling her how she was gonna help him and their parents to fight villains like that and be a hero and all that stuff.

Which was great and a good way to keep her from getting too freaked out and upset about everything that had happened with Von Strucker, but on the other hand, it also gave her a whole lot of overconfidence that she didn't need.

She was trying to keep up with Clint with his swordfights and everything, following him to practice and cheering him on.... But she wanted to do more.

So, she found the biggest stick she could find in the yard and found herself a nice, big space where she could practice. She tried to look super serious as she held the sword up the way she had seen Clint and Kurt hold their swords up to salute each other and then swung it around, grinning to herself as she did so.

At first, she started out with the basic stuff. She swung the stick around a few times and started to giggle when she felt how easy it was.

"I can totally do this!" she said to herself.

Before long, she had an entire army of pretend bad guys that she needed to fight to go rescue her baby brother — because she was a good big sister, and she was gonna keep James safe from bad guys. "Take that!" she cackled as she stabbed the air. "And this! And that!"

Swordfighting was so much fun.

It was so fun, in fact, that she wasn't paying attention to where she was going, and she started to run a little too fast for her own momentum. Suddenly, her feet had gotten tangled up underneath her, and, with a cry, she found herself flying forward, the ground rushing up way too fast to meet her.

She let out a terrified little squeak and tried to catch herself, but the next second—

Crack.

For just a second, Katie held her breath, and then she looked down at her arm and all the blood and started screaming.

That had the adults running fast to see what was wrong, and before Katie knew it, her mom had scooped her up, being exceedingly gentle as she looked at Katie's arm and made concerned noises, wiping Katie's face of tears and trying to calm the little girl down.

Clint was incredibly concerned as he followed K and Katie, too. It wasn't hard to see that Katie's arm was broken, and she was upset and crying, and Clint didn't know how to help other than to just... be there for his little sister.

Logan got there too, a little slower than K had been since he had been taking his turn getting James down for a nap, but he caught up fast to what was going on by the time K got Katie down to the medical setup. Which meant that he also caught it when Clint paused at the door of the med lab and suddenly couldn't get a breath right.

It didn't look like Clint was even aware that he'd done it. He wasn't aware of much of anything except that he was backing away from the door. He didn't know if it was the smell of the medicine or what, but he just... couldn't. He was totally frozen.

"You alright?" Logan asked, resting his hand on Clint's shoulder before he could go in.

For just a second, Clint tensed up at the touch, and then he shook his head, still almost holding his breath. He could see K and Katie inside, but he didn't want to get any closer. He wanted to be there for Katie, but...

"It looks bad, I know, but you can go if you need to. I'll find you later," Logan promised. "She's safe."

Yeah, I know, Clint replied, signing it to Logan but with his gaze on K and Katie, though when Logan didn't move either, Clint took a few steps back. The movement finally broke the spell enough to get him moving, and then he was gone up the stairs and away from the medical setup.