Scared To Be Lonely

Chapter 10: Punching An Alien

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Nick stayed back, letting Hawkeye, which she realized was his "hero name" when she remembered the reports of what she had read when she was doing "homework" with Tony, deal with all the aliens coming at them. She let him for many reasons; most of which was that she was still really shaky and trying to calm down from the fear that hadn't left her since she woke up today. She had untied the scarf around her thigh to try to make it small and hide the slice in it, that matched the aching slice in her thigh, before she tied it back around her leg.

"What happened to you?" Clint tried to start a conversation with the obviously terrified girl, hoping to get her mind off of it. Nick glanced up at him, her mouth a little dry as she responded. "A lot of... aliens and bad guys."

Seeing a certain red head riding on one of the alien bikes caused Nick to stand up straighter and point, making Clint follow her gaze to see that Loki was on her tail. "Nat, what are you doing?"

Nick got to her feet and moved over to the edge, hearing Natasha's voice as the woman was trying to dodge blasts. "Uh, a little help?"

Clint presses a button on his bow before grabbing an arrow, pulling it back on it's drawstring before getting ready to aim, a little crooked grin on his lips. "I got him."

Then he let go of the arrow, causing it to soar through the air and Loki caught it easily as they passed the roof, before lowering it and looking back at the two with a smirk... that got wiped off his face when the arrow exploded.

Nick grinned as she practically squealed, "That was awesome!"

Clint glanced to her with an amused raised eyebrow, the girl reminding him of his own kids. Then they watched Natasha jump off the bike and land on top the Stark Tower, as Loki fell onto the balcony, only to be joined by the Hulk.

But then the girl jumped back with a startled yelp, since an alien had popped up right in front of her with a screech. But because she was startled, the girl had punched forward which caused it to lose it's grip from the railing and fall down the side of the building with a long screech. 

"¡Hijo de un bi-!" [Son of a bi-!] The girl bit her tongue as she pulled her hand back and cradled it, since her fist was stinging and already bruising. Apparently punching aliens, who did seem to be wearing armor, hurt way worse than punching a person. 

Clint was still looking at her amused, knowing Spanish, and he had to hide a smile while shooting another arrow and asking her. "You okay?"

"Just peachy." She grumbled, watching the fight around the city and staying back this time. But when she saw Iron Man flying straight through a Leviathan only to blow it up from the inside, she went to the edge again to look down at the street, watching Iron Man go crashing to the ground. "¡Es un maldito idiota!" [He's a freaking idiot!]

But when she saw Chitauri heading towards him, she thought quickly and looking around below them before looking across. She brought her hands together in front of herself and focused, manipulating the sunshine and her own white light into reflecting on a window across from her, which then caused it to beam downwards, blinding one of the aliens. But then she moved her hands a bit more, making the light shine through some broken glass, which caused it to burn one of the other aliens. Allowing Tony enough time to get up.

Clint suddenly pulled her back and behind him, just in time to hit a Chitauri with his bow, before slamming an arrow into it. He had seen what she had done, which caused him to ask. "Um, any chance you can help out with that?"

Nick knew why he asked, because they were beginning to get even more aliens by the second, and as he tried shooting every one of them, Nick brought her hands up as she gripped two light daggers. She listened to him when he said to not get close, so she threw them, each time with a bit better accuracy than the last... but since she was only twelve and wasn't exactly a marksman, her aim wasn't the best either way.

But when Clint's quiver ran out of bows, he had to improvise and fight off a Chitauri with his bow before he then kicked it off the roof. When he turned around, he saw that Nick's nose was bleeding and he didn't remember it bleeding earlier, so it was either from getting hit or from her using whatever abilities she seemed to have. 

His gaze then snapped up to the sky, where there were way more Chitauri flying in, causing him to quickly look around as he thought of the next move. He then grabbed an arrow left from a dead Chitauri that was on the roof, and grabbed Nick. "Okay, you're going to have to hang on tightly. Don't let go." 

The little nodded, though her eyes were wide. She wrapped her legs around his waist and arms around his neck as he turned around and jumped off the roof, facing upwards as he brought his already ready bow and arrow up, just as the roof they had been on exploded as multiple shots got fired at it.

Clint then aimed and shot the arrow upwards, it's grappling system attaching to a different building and it's rope swinging the two towards it. He brought his feet up as they crashed through the window, so that his feet hit the glass instead of the girl, before they both crashed to the carpeted floor, both of them letting go upon impact as Nick rolled a few feet away.

The girl had her eyes squeezed shut as she hissed in pain, many parts of her body hurting, and as she rolled off her back, she could hear Clint grunt in pain. The girl only opened her eyes when she began sitting up, only to pull the jacket's sleeves over her hands to shield them from the shattered pieces of glass since she definitely didn't want any scratches on her already rope burned palms. 

Nick had strands of her dark brown hair around her face as she looked around, since her braid was hardly even there anymore. But as she went to stand up, the girl fell back to the ground with a pained noise as she squeezed her eyes shut, her leg hurting even worse.

Clint, hearing her, finally got up and moved over to her. "Hey, you okay, kid?"

"My leg.." She trailed off, and he looked down, nodding at her to move her hands. She hesitantly did and his eyebrows pulled together as he saw all the blood soaking her jeans, and blood completely soaked through whatever cloth had been used to bandage it. "This looks pretty bad. What happened?"

As he asked that, he had gotten up to look around the office they had landed in, eventually finding a sweater that he ripped a strip from it, before grabbing a red box from under somebody's desk. Nick watched him with a shrug, "Uh... it was first just a scratch from a bullet." She then ignored the curious look he had given her as he then kneeled back in front of her. "But then it got worse the first time I had been smashed through a window."

Clint nodded as he opened the first aid box, before pulling out a small bottle of vodka, that some worker had actually smartly hid in there. The man glanced up at her, before handing her the cloth. "Bite down on this. It's going to hurt."

Nick gave him a look, obviously not liking this, but listened. When he poured the alcohol on the wound to clean it, she had squeezed her eyes shut, the cloth barely muffling her scream. When it was gone and just badly stinging, Nick opened her watery eyes as he took the cloth from her mouth and proceeded to use that to tie around her wound to stop the bleeding, hopefully. 

Clint then glanced up before moving over to the window to look through, then he moved back over to grab his bow, putting it over his shoulder as he moved back over to her. He had seen enough injuries to know that she needed to keep pressure off her leg, so he kneeled down and picked her up, an arm under her knees while the other was behind her back.