Annie supposed she should listen to Clint and his babbling just a little more often. He had been correct about many a things as of recent, Natasha staying with them post the rather public falling of SHIELD had been just one of many. He had also been correct about their farm house, it was the perfect place and when they had done the essential work, Annie could see herself being able to work on the finer matters and turn it into her forever home. Clint had also been correct about the front porch, that it needed much more work than just a nice coat of paint. That much was evident as Annie stood one of her feet having gone through a now damaged wooden plank that made up the porch floor. Her foot, and attached leg, were now also stuck and a little battered if she could work out anything other than her annoyance at the situation. 

'Clint' She broadcasted across the mind link between the pair hoping he would be able to come swiftly and free her.

'Annie...' His voice responded and Annie need not to guess the sarcastic tone of which his words were delivered with. He had warned her that the task was much more than she thought and that it was possibly much more than just one person could take. 

'Help.' Annie didn't want to say too much, not out of fear of someone tapping into the mind link but more of the overall embarrassment which had established since she had got herself into the predicament. 

Annie heard his laughter before she clearly saw his face. Clint had been in their barn which contained the tractor, that didn't run but Clint loved to brag about owning, so he had come from behind to see Annie very clearly stuck. He came over to approach Annie, who was very much running out of patience regarding her current predicament, only to pause to take a moment to continue his state of hysteria. 

"Clint, please this isn't funny." Annie wanted nothing more now than to free her foot and go take a bath. The stress more than she thought it would be.

"It's just a little funny. Come on the big bad scary mutant can't unfree her foot from the broken plank." His voice held a teasing tone as he approached Annie, his eyes trained on where her foot had forced its way through the weakened wooden plank. 

"I will take this plank and hit you around the head until you're out cold." Annie's threat had no real traction and they both were aware of it, but this did not stop the bantering Clint had started himself on. 

"That's no way to talk to the person standing between you getting free." 

"I'll call Nat." This threat had a little more gumption to it, Annie's phone was in her back pocket and she wouldn't hesitate to use it to call Natasha.

"She won't answer. I'm your only hope." Clint was once again right in his words. Natasha was known to very often ignore the phone calls they both tried to initiate. She did not want to be bothered, whatever she was doing it was apparently important for the Avengers that was all they both knew, and that included both of the ex-assassin's partners. 

"I hate you." At these words Clint turned on his feet to walk in the direction he had come from. "No Clint, please. I'm sorry please just help me get free." Annie's voice broke as she spoke, the frustration she felt at the state she had gotten in had turned into sadness. All she had wanted that morning when she set out was to make the front of their house feel as homely and inviting as the rest of the property was starting to feel. She wanted to do things without having to use her mutation but once again she was starting to feel like she was useless without them. 

Clint's strides over to where she was stuck were much larger than they had been as he rushed to be by her side. His hands being placed on either side of her face as he tried to calm Annie down. 

"Hey, hey now I wasn't going to leave you stuck okay? Hmm take a couple of deep breathes for me let's get you freed and then we'll go inside. We can give this another try later on. Both of us." Clint's voice took on the calm tone that he only ever seemed to use on the two women in his life. The tone that always made Annie feel safe and she felt the panic and overwhelming sadness her emotions were being ruled by decrease slightly. 

"I'm sorry I just wanted to be able to do this on my own without using any of my mutations. But I'm obviously useless without them." Annie sighed as she spoke wanting more to be stronger and wondering just why she was so emotional at this moment in particular. 

"You are not useless. I fell in love with you, you did that alone the mutations are a bonus it's you that I love not Hex. I love Annie the woman who always loses her keys, has an amazing smile and always puts other's first. Not Hex the badass superhero." Annie could tell that Clint meant every word he was saying to her and she pondered just how lucky she was to have him in her life. 

"I love you so much. More than there are stars in the sky."

"More than there are stars in the sky." He iterated back, the phrase having become something that meant more than they would ever admit. His soon took his sight of Annie's face moving down to her foot which still remained trapped in the small gap that it had forced it's way through. He then attempted to pull at her leg hoping the extra force would pull her foot out.

The pair were making very little progress in getting Annie's foot free, the longer they tried to just pull it back out the more exhausted they were becoming. And as they took a moment to think of what their next strategy would be the shrill ringtone of Annie's phone rang. She wasted no time in retrieving her phone from her back pocket, determining that it was going to take a while to free her foot anyways. She took a moment to check the caller ID before accepting the phone call. 

"Antony what do I owe the pleasure." Annie hoped her emotions were in check as she answered the call, not wanting anyone to know about her little breakdown she had just experienced. 

"Sabrina, I'm assuming Katniss is not too far out of reach from you." Tony's voice sounded like it always did, full of the mans own confidence and cheek. And as Annie went to confirm the man's suspicion she actually found that Clint had sneaked off somewhere in the seconds it had taken her to pick up the phone. 

"He's around here somewhere." Annie confirmed nevertheless. For she was sure Clint would return very shortly. 

"Great then I don't have to call him as well. Right, moving on we think we have a lock on Loki's sceptre. A Hydra base in Sokovia, I'm sure you'll both be free to travel out tomorrow to get them before they're even aware we know the base exists." That was the thing with Tony Stark, he was always unaware that people might have prior commitments. Annie was going to respond to his question, informing him just how lucky he was that she was on a school vacation break and was indeed free, but was interrupted by the feeling of something cold running down her leg and towards her foot. She turned her attention back to Clint to see the man sat by her leg with a bottle of washing up liquid in hand pouring the contents onto her still trapped foot.

"Jesus Clint, that's cold a little warning next time." But the man only gave her a smirk in response knowing who she was on the phone to. 

"You two are obviously busy, just confirm you'll be here tonight ready for an early start in the morning." Tony's voice hinted that the man's dirty mind had clicked onto what Clint and Annie were 'up to'. 

"I don't know. Clint hydra base in the morning?" She got a nod in response. "Use your words baby." Annie was more than willing to play into what Tony thought was happening. 

"I'm down." Clint shrugged as he started to once again pull at Annie's trapped foot, getting more progress with the application of the washing up liquid than he had without.

"Yeah we'll be there. You providing food for tonight if we come?" Annie was half paying attention to the phone conversation as she started to assist more in getting her trapped limb out. 

"You guys would have ordered using my card even if I say no." At this set of words from Tony the pair were able to get Annie's foot free from its containment. 

"Oh you clever, clever man." Annie's words were full of praise as she waited for Clint to stand before bringing him into her arms. 

"Right I'm not sticking around to hear any more of Barton's praise kink. I'll see you guys later." Though Tony's words were ignored as Annie pulled Clint into a kiss. 

"You think we scared him off?" Clint laughed at his own words knowing that Tony had hung up thinking they were doing something much more sinful. 

"Serves him right." Annie shrugged as she looked down at her now free foot, the broken plank had scratched around her ankle producing blood but other than that it didn't look overly horrible. 

"Let's get that cleared up first, then we can pack." Clint pointed to Annie's ankle before heading inside picking up the bottle of washing up liquid on his way. Annie could only follow blindly behind him. 

The pair made their way to the dining table where Clint nodded to Annie to take a seat before he went towards the cupboard under their sink. Annie knew exactly what he was reaching for. She had taken to having a first aid kit stashed under the sink for the times he would come home with multiple cuts and bruises littering his body. Clint was silent as he worked to clean the very minimal cut just above her ankle but Annie could do nothing but stare at him as he worked. The way he was trying to be so delicate as he worked and muttered out an apology when she hissed from the contact of the alochol wipe felt like a mirror. Annie felt as though she was seeing a reflection for the countless number of times she had done it for the archer crouched in front of her. The times when the only way either of them could understand that things were over and they were safe was through this ritual. 

She watched on as his face pulled into one of heavy concentration as he stared at her ankle making sure that he had cleaned it thoroughly. Clint was possibly the most handsome man she had ever met, and Annie was brought crashing back to the moment she had first ever met him. 

It was October 3rd 2008 and fresh faced  21 year old Annie Summers was walking around the New Jersey base of SHIELD. It was her first allocation as a SHIELD agent having passed out of the intensive training programme. Her handler Phil Coulson was walking her around the base introducing her to many new faces, many of which she would not be able to recall the next time she spoke to them, he was a nice man that much she was sure of. He was excitable and this excitement seemed to continue to increase the closer and closer they got to one of the training rooms. He may have been her handler, her most senior agent, but she had two senior agents inside the very training room who would be responsible for her furthering training and first few missions she was to be sent on. 

The door opened upon reading Phil's fingerprints and Annie was finally introduced to a room she was familiar with. Everything at the New Jersey base was not something she had much experience with yet this training room was. It looked very similar to the danger room she had trained in since her powers had first manifested at age 9. There were some differences such as there actually being physical training items such as dummies and targets rather than those created by the danger room programme. But the small sense of familiarity was more than enough for Annie to feel just slightly more confident. She felt as though she could be introduced to her senior agents and not make a fool out of herself. 

"Annie I would like to introduce you to Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff your senior agents. Clint, Natasha this is Annie Summers our new friend from Professor Xavier's School." Phil motioned back and forth between the three but Annie was not paying full attention at first. 

"You're enhanced then?" A slightly gruff voice pulled her attention over in the direction of the male agent. This was Clint Barton, Hawkeye, and Annie found herself frozen for a second. He wasn't a very tall man, with sandy blonde hair and dark enrapturing blue eyes. He stood in the standard issued SHIELD uniform though the archery brace on his left arm stuck out clearly. Her eyes soon became drawn to the hearing aids he wore and her right hand moved up to touch her own. 

"If that's what you call it." Annie finally remembered to respond as she tore her eyes away from him and onto the woman beside her. 

"That won't give you a free card here. Inside here you're nothing more than a normal agent. No use of the enhancements allowed." The woman's voice was accented and Annie turned to Natasha Romanoff. Annie knew that she held emotions towards both genders but she had never been hit hard with feelings this hard, instantly ever before. But as she stared at the red haired woman, who was significantly shorter than her, with the confidence of a god. Annie knew she was in trouble.

"Earth to Annie." Clint shaking her shoulders brought her back to the current time. Seven years later where she was in a relationship with the two she had been so caught up on from the moment she had met them. 

"Where were you?"

"October 3rd 2008." Annie smiled at Clint in response as she fondly remembered the meeting between the group which turned into something beautiful. 

"Who would have thought the 21 year old mutant that walked through the doors of the training room would become one of the most important people in my life?" Clint responded with a smile just as full as Annie's own. 

"Phil, he knew what he was doing when he introduced us all." Annie was quick with her response, she owed Phil a lot something she could never repay other than keeping his memory alive. 

"What a slimy old man. Always one step ahead of us all." Clint pulled out a band aid, a barbie themed one to be precise as he put it over the now fully cleaned cut. 

"He was totally a prophet that man could see into the future I'm sure of it."