Chapter Text
Within the span of a week, Kate’s life had changed drastically. She had managed to get involved in a major criminal operation, met her hero, almost died, fought a Black Widow assassin, had her mother arrested…and the list continued on. As far as Christmas went, this had definitely been the strangest one yet.
The cherry on top of it all was that she had nobody to spend Christmas with now, and her apartment had gone up in flames. Sure, she could stay at her aunt's apartment a little longer, but eventually she was going to need to leave.
Kate and Clint had actually returned to her aunt's apartment Christmas Eve night, after everything had gone down. It was a bit of a relief, Kate thought, that she wouldn’t be keeping Clint from his family on Christmas Day. Maybe he would pack up and leave that night, and be back to his home by morning. How far did he live from New York, anyways?
She didn’t think too much about it, just wanting to take a shower and try to get some sleep if at all possible. But first things first…she had to walk the dog. So they walked inside and she grabbed Pizza Dog’s leash and made her way back outside as Clint went to call his wife to let her know he’d be coming home.
Who knows, maybe he’d already be gone by the time she got back. Or maybe he’d stay long enough to say a quick goodbye. Despite her wanting nothing more than to take a moment to rest, Kate made sure to walk the still unnamed dog for a good enough amount of time to give the hero time to talk to his family without her being over his shoulder. Besides, it also gave her some alone time to comprehend all that had happened.
‘I had my mother arrested on Christmas Eve because she killed someone and framed my almost step-dad. My father was involved with the mafia, so then my mother became involved as well. Oh my god do I even have a job anymore?’
It dawned on her then that she was going to run out of money - all her credit cards were still canceled and who knew what was going to happen to Bishop Security now that Eleanor was behind bars. She assumed someone else high up in the company would be in control for a while, but the only reason she had her job to begin with was her mother. How was she going to find a new apartment now?
The thoughts were running wild in her mind when she walked back upstairs, somewhat shocked to see Clint simply sitting in the recliner watching whatever Christmas movie was playing on the Hallmark channel. So she tried to push all the worried thoughts away and put on a smile, determined not to somehow ruin his Christmas even more than she already probably had. God forbid he ends up worried about where she’ll end up so he tries to stay behind for some reason.
“Heading back to wherever home is?” she said with a smile as she took the dog's leash off and hung it back up, “You could probably make it by morning, especially if you took a plane. Do the Avengers have some private jets on standby or something?”
Clint let out a bit of a laugh, “Technically yes, I guess you could say that. We flew here commercially but there’s a quinjet in the hangar here, I’ve already checked and told them I’m going to be using it.”
“So guess you’ll be heading out soon then?”
“In the morning. But I did want to ask you something…do you have any other family here? Someone you can spend the holiday with?”
“Uh, not really. I never knew my family outside of my parents really, and now I guess I know why…”
He nodded in understanding, “You can come to Iowa with me if you want. You’d be more than welcome.”
“I…” this had caught Kate off guard, surely she had misheard him. Had Hawkeye really just invited her to spend Christmas with his family? “I don’t want to impose or anything. I can imagine you bringing a random person and her dog home might not be the best present.” she tried to joke.
“I once brought home a Russian assassin who I had been sent to kill, I think a kid and a dog won’t be an issue,” Clint laughed, “Besides, I already asked Laura. She’s fine with it if you are, but I’m not going to force you.”
She couldn’t help but smile, “Yeah, I mean, if it’s okay with your family. I’d love to.”
And that’s how she had found herself spending Christmas in Iowa that year. In the morning they had gone to the quinjet - which Kate had proclaimed was the best Christmas gift she had ever gotten, getting to be on one of the Avengers jets - and started the flight.
“You got a name for that dog yet?” Clint asked as he sat in the pilots seat, “Pizza Dog isn’t really a name.”
Kate thought for a second. She had been throwing around dog names in her head all night, but it was really only one that stuck out more than others.
Lucky.
She had been lucky to run into Clint when she did, lucky he had been in New York and was able to help her fix her mess. She figured the dog was lucky too, in a way.
“His name’s Lucky,” Kate answered, “But I’m still gonna call him Pizza Dog.”
Clint’s children loved Lucky, and Lucky was loving all the attention he was getting from them. Of course now he had actual dog food to eat instead of pizza, but she may or may not have accidentally gotten the youngest Barton child calling the golden retriever Pizza Dog as well.
Kate wondered how long the invitation to stay was good for, but they hadn’t told her to leave yet and she wasn’t going to be the first to bring it up. By now she definitely had nowhere to stay in New York and had definitely lost her job, so she wasn’t going to rush herself out of the house until she was asked to.
A few days into the New Year she thought that time had finally come when Clint had walked up to her and brought up going back to New York.
“So I was thinking,” he had said, “You should go back to the city and go through your mothers things, go get anything sentimental to you. She’ll be in prison for a while and I imagine eventually Jack is going to try and take over the place. I’d hate for you to lose anything important.”
“Yeah…” she said, “Most of my things were destroyed in my apartment, but maybe I could salvage some things there too.”
“Got any plans for this weekend?” he asked, “We could fly the quinjet back out there Friday and spend Friday and Saturday going through stuff, then start the drive back Sunday if you’re okay with being in a car for nearly seventeen hours.”
“I’m coming back to Iowa?” Kate couldn’t stop herself from saying, knowing the confusion was evident in her voice, “I mean, you’re not going to make me stay in New York?”
“You told me you had nowhere to go there. If you want you can stay there, but you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. Laura and the kids love you, we’re not going to make you leave. Besides, didn’t I tell you I was going to start training you?”
Kate was now beyond excited, realizing what this meant for her. She was going to be living with her childhood hero, being trained by him. It was like she had fallen asleep and was having the best dream of her life.
Until that Saturday, sitting in her mothers office and breaking into the lockbox she had in there.
Growing up she had never paid much attention to it, her mother had always claimed it just held boring, important documents which was enough for Kate to never bother going near it. Now though, she wondered what it really held.
Maybe it would prove more crimes that had been committed, maybe they could tip off the police to some bad guys still wandering the streets. Or maybe it really was just boring important documents, but she felt either way they should be gone through.
Once she finally cracked the code and got in, she was shifting through everything when she saw a folder with her name on it.
“Oh sweet, maybe my birth certificate is in here,” she mumbled to herself, figuring that counted as something important she might need one day, “I swear if this is just school attendance awards…”
But as soon as the folder was opened, Kate felt her entire world come to a screeching halt for what felt like the millionth time since she had walked in on that secret auction.
The first thing she saw was labeled clearly so there was no mistaking what it was, but she reread it about twenty times before it finally sunk in what the words meant.
Certificate of Adoption: Katherine Elizabeth Bishop