Avengers (2012): "Shot in the Dark" (1/6) (Clint/Natasha)

[cybermathwitch]

Title: Shot in the Dark (1/6)
Author/Artist: Koren M. (cybermathwitch)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, there'd already be a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie.
Pairing: Pre- Clint/Natasha (UST)
Rating: R (mostly for violent themes and language)
Warnings: language and some violence
Spoilers: None
Type: Completed
Word Count: 2,695
Summary: In her life there comes a

Comments

[cybermathwitch]

this is so beautiful! it's been part of my headcanon too that movie!natasha independently broke away from the red room and defected long before SHIELD ever made her radar and vice versa.

I knew I had seen some discussion of the idea in the comm (during the prompt-a-thon, I think? I was having SO MANY discussions about different points of canon and headcanon during that) - so it's entirely possible that may be where it started from? Originally, it played much more closely to fanon convention - I'd started the whole damn thing trying to figure out *why* he would've changed his mind, what would/could he have seen that made him go against orders and all. Which of course he still has to do, here. And all I could come up with for his part that made sense was that for once, one time, she hadn't fought it. That she was going to let him shoot her, and why was she doing that? Which led to all these feels about her losing control, having these blackouts and then having done (even more) horrible things. The idea that she's not exactly suicidal, but sees fianlly running into someone who might be capable of taking her out as destiny/justice/fate? But when I listened to "Shake it Out" she told me in no uncertain terms she'd already been thinking about defecting to SHIELD, that she was trying to change things, she certainly wanted to live, and so on. (And then I had to rewrite a good chunk of their time in Paris, of course!)

gah, and the way she deals with the blackouts? *SCREAMING* OH, NATALIA! this whole first part hinged on her truths revealed to loki that have never really been expounded upon and here it is in all this wonderfully fleshed out story.

Eeeee, thank you! yeah, an entire head-canon, all based on that one conversation between them and a very deep-seated conviction that there's no way the "debt" that she owes Clint is as simple as "oh, he chose not to kill me." That has to have been repaid several times over. (I believe she does feel like she owes him a great deal of a debt, but it's more recent to the movie events, rawer (is that even a word?) and closer to the surface.)

i really also love the way you've set the board for the head on collision we're about to witness with barton. HEEEE! and the foundation for the bromance of phil and clint is awesome. SHIELD really does love it's last chance gambles. SO MUCH AWESOME IN THIS BB! SO. MUCH. *RUNSTOTHENEXTPART*

:D <3 <3 <3

Everything about these two for me hinges on two things - they are at a high enough skill level that it's next to impossible to find anyone else that can keep up with them, and that at heart they are sympathetic characters (cue Alanis Morissette song here). Finding someone else even a little like them, someone who can understand and share experiences with them is just so huge.

I absolutely get the arguments that Phil can't be exclusively their handlers, but I really <3 the idea that Clint and Nat are his favorites, his problem children if you will. He tends to see things in people that others miss.