Avengers Imagines (Part One)

Clint Barton X Reader - Seventeen

A/N - This chapter is based on the song 'Seventeen' by Haley Blais. In this imagine, Clint never met his wife and has remained unmarried. I hope you all enjoy it.

Seventeen

Your best friend was possibly the most attractive person in your school. There was very little about him that wasn't absolutely perfect. Not a single wonky tooth, or hair out of place. He had never gone through the acne phase like everyone else had. 

It was pretty easy to see that you were in love with him. Hell, you were almost certain that every other kid in school could see it, except for him, of course. No. Clint would never realise that you were in love with him. You were his dorky friend. The one who cracked stupid jokes and hung around with the boys. Everyone knew that funny girls didn't get the guy. They were the side character; the one that made everyone else happy whilst they wallowed in their own lame life. 

Life would have been so much easier if you were one of the pretty girls. If he had never seen you with braces. If he had never seen the way you had snorted orange juice through your nose whilst laughing at one of his dumb comments. God, if he had never seen you cry your way through an anxiety attack. Normalcy seemed to be natural for the other girls you knew. They could glide through life with so little effort that it made you a little mad. Everything about them was perfectly tuned to make the boys in your class fall in love, and yet you could barely walk in a straight line without tripping over your own feet. 

Most mornings, you woke up at an unholy hour to plaster yourself with makeup and attempt to tame your hair into something that looked attractive in the hopes of gaining his attention. Some days, he would comment on the curls, telling you they looked pretty, and you'd get all light headed and smiley. It was pathetic really, but what else could you do?

Twenty Three

Six years could make a big difference to a girls self-esteem. College had worked wonders in bringing you out of your shell, and you'd even taken the chance to give dating a try. You had liked the few guys you'd seen, but none of them had felt right. They were always so uptight, or boring. God, some of them were downright sexist. 

You supposed that part of you had always known that you would find issues with your dates. It wasn't fair on them really. You would spend the entirety of dinner comparing everything with Clint. Clint would never have tried to talk you into ordering a salad instead of pizza. Clint would never have berated a waiter for some stupid little issue. Clint would definitely have never left without leaving a tip for the waiting staff. 

Hell, you hadn't even seen him since moving away from home for college, but he was still in your mind non-stop. Part of you wondered whether it was unhealthy, the way you felt about him. It was bordering on obsession. 

When you'd finally moved back in with your parents, you'd considered calling him. But as soon as the idea came to you, you had panicked. There was no way to call him without sounding weird. What would you even say? Hi Clint, I know it's been three years since you last heard from me, but i'm still totally in love with you. Want to hang out some time? No. The best thing you could do was put him out of your mind and attempt to give some other poor sod a chance at falling in love with you. 

Eventually, you started dating at home. There were a few guys that you'd known from high school, who hadn't seemed to grow up at all, and a couple that you'd met through friends. But none of them had really clicked and you'd almost given up.

It was then that your mother had gotten involved in your love life, telling you all about her friend who had a son your age. She'd gone on and on about how they'd met at a yoga class and gotten talking. She'd kept bothering about giving the poor boy a chance until you'd given in and agreed to one date. She'd been so excited that she'd hurried off to call her friend and give her the good news.