Secret Santa: Who Needs a Memory When We Both Have Home?

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A Gift From: poppetawoppet
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: Who Needs a Memory When We Both Have Home?
A Gift For: gsparkle
Rating: PG (mostly some swearing)
Warnings: some discussion of the Red Room and killing people
Summary/Prompt Used: I took the 5 + 1 and turned it into Four Cities Clint and Natasha Remember Differently, and One That’s Almost the Same
Author's Note: I went off prompt, but I hope you enjoy it!


Some time before Ultron, but definitely after Hydra, they return to the tower after a long mission and sit around telling stories and drinking too much. (Maria walks in halfway through the night, puts her feet up, and takes the beer Steve offers. She knows most of the stories, but she likes hearing them anyway.)

She looks around. “So what city are we reminiscing about tonight?”

“Tony was telling us about some conference in Salzburg, which got Steve onto Vienna,” Sam says.

“Didn’t you two meet in Vienna?” Maria turns to Clint and Natasha, who have managed to sprawl across a large couch.

“Not officially,” Clint says.

“I knew who you were,” Natasha says. “Not my fault my disguise skills were better in those days.”

“Not how I remember it,” Clint says. “I recognized you, I just couldn’t place you.”

“Sure you did.”

Maria grins and sits back in the couch. Getting Clint and Natasha started like this was a guarantee of an entertaining evening.

*

Vienna

Agent Barton His name is Jacques, and he is a French Olympian on holiday. He has brought his boyfriend, Pierre to the masked ball tonight.

Pierre is somewhere else in the embassy, copying files and downloading them to the SHIELD database.

(Clint has to think of Agent Francis as Pierre, because he’s terrible with names, it’s his worst failing as a spy, and he keeps trying to tell Fury that he’s better off in the background, keeping eyes on everything, but he speaks fluent French and passable German, so here he is.)

He dances a few times to keep himself moving, and places a bid that isn’t too insulting on some art that reminds him of home, and waits for Pierre to finish. He adjusts his mask, and looks around again.

Clint sees her approach, and hears ringing-a warning, a signal-something saying his life is going to change even though he doesn’t know it yet. She’s smiling full force, but it isn’t real. He’s smiled that smile too many times not to know.

“You need a dance,” she says.

“I do? I suppose you are the one to give it to me?”

She nods, and they glide down to the dance floor. It’s a waltz, which Clint can pull off. He’s still learning the forms, but he can make his way through a night like this without embarrassing himself. (He knows she’s in the business, but she’s recognized him, so it doesn’t hurt toplay along. She has sought Clint out for something.)

“They say you’ve competed in the Olympics,” she says.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “Rowing.”

“Hmm,” she says. “You seem more of an archery type.”

Clint looks into her green eyes, and says nothing.

“I’m sorry. I’m very direct,” she says. “It’s something I’ve newly learned, and I like it too much to give it up.”

“Well, you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. I recognized you as a type, but I have no idea who you are.”

“That’s the point, Agent Barton,” she whispers, and slips something in his jacket pocket.

She brushes her cheek against his, playing a part once more, and walks away.

Clint blinks. Something about her is familiar. The shape of her chin, the color of her eyes. He knows he should know her, but he also recognizes that she is probably a much more experienced spy than he.

He sees Pierre come in, and walks over to greet him.

(When he pulls out the note in his jacket, he is alone in the bathroom. It has a local address, and the name of the person they’ve been hunting for weeks. Clint knows he can’t take it to Francis, it’ll be dismissed as a trap. Clint isn’t sure why he knows it isn’t, or why he trusts the mysterious woman, but she hadn’t blown his cover, and she had given the information freely. The address is real, and Clint passes off the intel as something he overheard in the ballroom, but he keeps the note safe, in case he needs it.

He does need it, and he does remember who she is. Eventually.)

*

Natalia Romanova

Natalia has been free for two and a half years now. This month is the first she has been Natalia again. Not their Natalia, but the hazy remnant of the girl she remembers i some dusty corner of her mind they didn’t clean out and repurpose.

Natalia doesn’t know why she comes to Vienna, except maybe that she’s never been to Vienna, so there is no history to haunt her, no one who might recognize her under the wig and the fake American accent.

She recognizes the SHIELD agents the moment they arrive. Well, one of them is fairly obvious. The other-she knows his face from a briefing some time ago. The Hawk. He doesn’t strike here as the sort of agent they would send for the op she sees, so Natalia decides to watch, and wait.

(She has no illusions that the moment she is recognized, she is either dead or captured, and she’s not sure which would be preferable. Dead means she might be able to rest again, but captured might mean she gets a chance to find more dusty corners and light them up.)

Once she finds out what they are in Vienna for, Natalia finds it. It isn’t quite home, but she’s been able to sort out some of the fuzzy memories that brought her here, and she doesn’t need the interruption SHIELD brings.

She walks into the ball without an invitation, her smile and her dress enough to pass her on. She mingles, and places a decent bid on a piece of art that is nothing like home. She dances exactly once, and puts herself on the edge of a vocal group, smiling and laughing where appropriate, belonging without having to commit herself to memory.

Natalia sees an opening, and decides to move. She approaches the Hawk with the same stride she walked into the ball with. He looks right at her.

He sees her.

Natalia blinks and keeps walking, because training lets her, but his blue eyes never leave hers, and it’s disconcerting. She understands his name now. (She isn’t prey, but he sees her, and not who she’s pretending to be, and that’s not something that has ever happened. She respects it, and decides not to pretend. He dances fairly well, and she knows he’s still watching when she disappears from the room.)

Later, when they follow the trail, Agent Barton gives his superiors a very good lie as to where his information came from. Natalia memorizes his face, so should they meet again, she can return the favor. They leave Vienna.

She stays, but not much longer. She leaves with a favor to call in, a plan, and a piece of art that doesn’t look like home.

*

”This is just like Budapest!”

Clint keeps shooting arrows. “You and I remember Budapest very differently.”

“Okay, okay,” Tony says. “Since we’re talking about cities, there has been one I’ve been wanting to know about for years now.”

“Is this Clint and Natasha story hour now?” Natasha folds her arms.

“Come on, Red. None of us are going to bed after today’s mission.”

“Okay. What city?”

“Budapest.”

The room is silent. Steve leans forward, and Sam looks confused.

Clint laughs.

*

It rains in Budapest.

(The rain is not the most memorable thing, nor the only thing he notices. But all his memories of Budapest involves the soft showers, and the slight smell of wet.)

He can’t remember how many missions Budapest makes. He can’t remember where he left his keys most days, but some things are permanent enough for him. His dog. His bow.

Nat isn’t permanent. Not really. They may be partners, Strike Team Delta, friends, whatever, but she is not always there.

Budapest is the first time he realizes that it bothers him.

Clint knows he’s too kind, too friendly, too open. He’s only learned to shut himself away.

(He knows he’s the Hawk because he keeps himself high, and sees more than people think he can. No one knows it’s because staying away is the only way he can manage to keep himself apart. His nature is to make friends. So he doesn’t.)

Nat is his friend. She tolerates him most days, but he trusts her to watch over him, even when he can’t watch over himself.

Budapest is when he gets hurt. It’s just an ankle sprain, but it puts them at risk. They can’t move until he can walk properly, and their window is just small enough they might miss it. Nat takes one look at the foot, and immediately begins to plan.

(Fury would look at them for going off book again, but grudgingly admit that her plan was better than the original anyway. It’s not long after this that he decides to split them up, that she’s better at thinking on the fly and Clint’s better with orders and a plan. Truth is, Clint can think on the fly, it just usually gets messy, and Nat can follow a plan, but she hates it when hers are better and dismissed.)

“So the plan is to fend off three times our firepower, while maintaining crowd control and solving the issue of cutting off the supply?”

She smiles at him, “I never said it was an easy plan.”

Clint shakes his head. “Why would it be easy? Easy is too…”

“Easy?”

He grins at her, and she shakes her head at him. “I can’t believe SHIELD let a child through their ranks.”

“Well, you know, it was a slow day,” Clint says.

“And what kind of day was it when you dragged me back from Stalingrad?”

“A lucky one.”

Clint watches as Nat shakes her head again and steps away.

Of all the girls, she’s the one you fall for he thinks, and Clint blinks in surprise.

He hasn’t really thought about it. It’s just now occurred to him, in this damp dark room that he thinks about her a lot more than he should, and that it only bothers him that she’s not around all the time because she isn’t just his friend.

Clint shuts down the thought, because it is not the time, or the place, and there are thousands of other reasons to leave it alone, most of them being fear and guilt.

“Stop daydreaming and get back to work,” Nat says. “This plan isn’t going to execute itself.”

Clint nods, and hobbles behind her into the rain.

*

Agent Romanov

It rains in Budapest.

Natasha notices the rain-smells it everywhere-and files it away. It’s not important information, not now.

She’s learned four fundamental things since she joined SHIELD.

1. The past matters, but not as much as the present. Once she’d been released for duty, there was unconditional-well mostly-trust from fellow agents. At least in the field. She didn’t mind that. Being trusted in the field was the most important to her.

2. Clint trusted her. Always. (He trusted everyone. On most spies, it would be death to be as trusting as him, but he somehow made it an asset.) But he had taken her home once, which meant more than trust in the field. Natasha knows the word for it is friend, but she can’t speak it aloud, because Clint isn’t just her friend. She doesn’t know what he is, except that she’d known him the minute she saw him across the ballroom in Vienna.

3. Information always came faster than she could process it. Being remade so many times gave her the ability to hide it with one of her other selves until she needed it.

4. She works much better when she is involved in the planning of an op. So far the only agents she trusts to plan without her are Hill, Fury, and May. (Clint does not plan. It’s best if he’s left out of plans.)

5. Clint cares for her. (At the very beginning she considers sleeping with him, but he’s not a target, and she doesn’t want to be that person anymore, so she doesn’t.) Attraction she can manage. Caring is something different. It’s separate from his friendship, and she often wonders when he’ll actually say something. Budapest is when she realizes he’s waiting for her to make a move.

(This is information she can’t file away. It’s always in the back of her head, interrupting when she stops trying to plan, the last thing she thinks of when she goes to sleep, and the first when she wakes. Later, when they aren’t holding off a relentless attack while trying to save the mission, it stops. Not because either of them made a move, but because she figures out why.

Clint wants her to make a move, because he wants to make sure she feels the same about him. Anything less would…not work.)

So it rains in Budapest, she thinks about Clint waiting, and he sprains his ankle. Over a stray dog.

Natasha doesn’t have time to worry for him, or the need to worry for him. So far Clint has been able to take care of himself, despite what Agent Hill told her. She worries about the plan, the supply they are supposed to stop, and how to work around an injured agent. So she does what is familiar: her and Clint, side by side, taking down anything else one at a time, until the job is done.

*

Steve and Sam have turned the living room into a Mario Kart battle, so Natasha slips out not far behind Clint. She knows where he’s going anyway.

They reach the top of the tower, and Clint sits on the roof and watches the sky.

“Been a minute since I’ve been up here,” he says.

“I think the last time we were up here was right after I kicked your ass and saved it too.”

Clint grins. “I do remember that.”

*
New York

Barton

Clint asks what he’s done, and no one tells him, so he pretends to be angry, and goes off to be alone.

He remembers everything. From the moment the staff touched his heart to when he woke up handcuffed to the bed, he remembers, his body moving without him and his voice speaking for itself. It is blue, peaceful, and happy.

(What if he had gotten lucky and killed Nat? What if she’s killed him?)

Those are the two things he thinks about most on the way to New York. Three if you count him asking himself why he didn't fight. Why--

Before they leave the chopper, Nat puts her hand on his.

“We didn’t kill each other, and you didn’t fight because you couldn’t. If you focus on the what ifs and the whys, you’ll never get any answers. Trust me on that.”

He nods at her, and puts the questions away. There’s hordes to be fought, and people to protect.

After it’s over, after the shawarma, Tony offers them untouched rooms in the tower, and they accept.

Clint does not sleep.

He climbs to where the floor opens up to the sky, and leans against a wall. It’s as close to a perch as he’s going to get, but the heights and the open air help him clear his mind. (Except the what if and the why, he tries to ignore them, but they keep coming back.)

What if he had killed her? He would be dead himself. If he had gone back to Loki, he would have likely died in the alien invasion. If he had woken up, he would have fought until he couldn’t, and hoped he died from grief. That was the easy question.

Why didn’t he fight? He’d talked with Dr. Selvig some, and he’s almost come to terms with it. When faced with the power of a god, even the deepest part of you obeys. Or as Nat had put it, it was monsters and magic and things they hadn’t even begun to train for.

“What if she had killed me?” he whispered to the night sky.

It’s the only one he cannot answer.

“If I’d killed you, I would have resuscitated you just to kill you again for making me kill you the first time.”

Clint turns his head.

“Didn’t know you had gotten your CPR certification.”

“Had a lot of free time after Sydney,” she says, walking over and sitting next to him.

“Where did you go after dinner?”

She shrugs. “Had an errand to run.”

“Nat-“

“I don’t know,” she says. “What I would have done. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, but killing you would have likely put me somewhere I could not come back from.”

She takes his hand, and he slips his fingers through hers. It’s enough of an answer to let his mind rest for now, so he watches the night sky, and lets himself breathe.

“Come on,” Natasha says. “I’ve something to show you.”

She leads him back to his room. She turns to him at the door.

“If Tony makes a fuss, I brought him here.”

Clint blinks. “What?”

Natasha opens the door, and Clint sees his dog on the bed and chewing on what is hopefully a bone.

“Lucky-“ Clint swallows. “You brought me my dog. I-you-I-“

She pats his hand, and kisses his cheek.

“I know. Go get some sleep.”

He watches her disappear down the hall, and then does what she says.

(It’s only two hours, and another fifteen minutes of tossing, but it’s sleep.)

*

Nat

“Barton’s been compromised.”

She doesn’t hear anything else Coulson says. None of it really matters.

(She finishes the job, and is all business during the debrief. She’s still very good at compartmentalizing, and if they knew how much she cared, she might not get included. )

Natasha takes the normal two hours to make sure she isn’t followed, even though she doesn’t want to. (She’s off to find Banner tomorrow, and probably the helicarrier after that, and she doesn’t have enough time to really go home and-)

Home she thinks. When did it become home?

She lets herself in the apartment Clint keeps in D. C., and sits in the armchair, staring at the wall.

“Nat.”

She bolts herself awake and looks around the apartment. He isn’t there. It’s morning and she’s still in the chair. So she packs a bag of the clothes she has there, pausing only to bury the picture on Clint’s bedside in between her guns and shirts.

Nat tries to keep the picture in her head when she’s holding him off, using all of her strength to match his. Thirty seconds after he hits the floor his hands are tied, and she touches his face.

“You better wake up you, asshole,” she says, “I have things to say.”

New York is nothing like Budapest. There’s more people on their side, for one, and Budapest didn’t have aliens and gods, either.

But the odds seem the same, and she knows that Clint’s been in love with her since then, so it’s the only way she knows how to tell him it’s the same for her.

(She doesn’t love him for making the call in Stalingrad. Or for any sort of savior complex reasons. She loves him because he still tells her stupid jokes at 2 AM and because he loves his dog and thinks cold pizza can be eaten for any meal and, and, and.)

Nat doesn’t put it away, but she still does her job. There are many ways to compartmentalize.

After they eat, she borrows transportation. Turns out saying the words is a lot harder that opening your mouth and forming sounds. So she takes a page from Clint’s book, and goes for action.

(After Budapest he buys her a ridiculously large unicorn and names in Even More Lucky, and insists she take it with her when they split up, because how else is she going to ever have a partner as good as he is, so the unicorn will have to do. It’s a gesture of love, and she only recognizes it over three months later. Nat doesn’t know what to do about it then, except let it be, and the next time she sees him, she makes sure to get a picture of Lucky and Even More Lucky together, and frames it for him, and it sits on his damn beside table. Even More Lucky falls apart, but by then they’re already circling around each other, and there’s other gestures that matter.)

When Clint sees the dog in the room, he looks at her, and he knows and she still doesn’t say it-it’s not quite time yet-and she kisses him on the cheek and walks away.

*

“Don’t you two ever get tired of this view?” Steve stands in front of the stairwell door.

“It’s not about the view,” Natasha says. “No one else but Sam really likes the height, so it’s quiet.”

“Huh. I usually hide out in the gym in the basement.”

“We all have them.”

He stands there staring at them for a few minutes.

“What’s up, Steve?”

He gives Natasha a half smile. Thought we found a lead in Stalingrad. Turned out to be a ghost.”

“I could have told you that. The Soldier program would have been kept very far from the Red Room.”

*

Stalingrad

Agent Barton

His hand freezes only a second when they pass the photo to him. Clint recognizes the eyes immediately, but says nothing.

“Natalia Romanova. Also known as the Black Widow. She’s been spotted in the area. She’s been freelance for some time, but no one knows if she still has ties to Russia.”

“She is not our objective. As a graduate of the Red Room, the intel she could provide would be a great asset. However she is one of the most dangerous people you will ever meet. If you should happen upon her, she is not worth your life to capture. Evade, or kill.”

Their mission is tracking some illegal missiles and making sure not to be seen. Clint knows she is watching too, but can never seem to catch her in his sights. They complete the mission without a hitch. He says he wants to search the warehouse one more time. Hill had learned to trust his hunches, and lets him go.

“Clint Barton. The Hawk.”

He turns, and her hair is red now, and she’s wearing pants, but her eyes and her walk are the same.

“I’m supposed to evade or kill you,” he says. “Natalia Romanova. The Black Widow.”

“And yet your hands are free of weapons.”

“I owe you a favor. Can’t kill you until it’s repaid.”

She laughs. “There are many that would.”

“Plus I don’t see the point in killing someone who isn’t actually our enemy.”

She tilts her head. “Your superiors will think you a double agent if I come willingly.”

“What if I put a gun to your head?”

“It might work.”

He leads her back to headquarters, and does a lot of fast talking. He doesn’t want to kill her for many reasons, the primary one being that he knows her. (He can’t quite place it, because he’s a carny from Iowa, and she’s, well, not. But he knows her.)

He follows her into the Red Room, and realizes that he knows nothing about her. That she knows little about herself. That there are many things he wish he did not know.

When they leave, she looks straight at him. “Are you going to kill me now?”

He shakes his head. “No. I’m going to introduce you to funnel cake.”
*

Natalia/Nat

There are many Stalingrads.

Some of them are even real.

She never remembers all of it, and sometimes, when a slip of a memory surfaces, she isn’t sure whether it actually happened, or it’s a part of a made up history given to her all those years ago.

Stalingrad is a city that is best left in the past.

The woman who was once Natalia walks the streets, and recognizes none of it. The cold is familiar, and the language surfaces on her tongue as if she never left.

The Red Room was torn down years ago, and houses stand in its place. The hostel she stayed in after she broke with is condemned. The embassy she was taken to by SHIELD still stands, but she’s not supposed to be here.

Nat-she feels like she is Nat now-walks the streets, and makes new memories. She remembers things too, but today is the man feeding birds at the river, and watching the snowball fight.

She came here to be Tasha. To be real. There wasn’t a Stalingrad where she wasn’t Natalia, or some version of Natalia, and she had vacation time. So she found herself on a plane.

(There is one other Stalingrad she knows for sure is true, the one where she has a gun to her head, and she lives. But that Stalingrad is an embassy and a warehouse and a car, and not much else.)

She calls Clint when she’s at the warehouse.

“Your connection sucks, all I hear is static,” he says.

“Not my fault all you can hear is the matter between your ears,” she replies.

“Ha. What are you doing?”

“Vacation. Even More Lucky and I are playing tourist. Well, I’m playing tourist. He’s in bed, the lazy guts.”

“My kind of guy. You usually aren’t one to call for nothing, Nat.”

“I was just thinking of you.”

The line is silent.

“I’m in Stalingrad,” she says. “By the warehouse.”

“Nat, I-“

“I was thinking, the next time I’m around, maybe I’ll buy you pizza.”

Clint clears his throat. “Are you asking me out?”

“Maybe. Maybe I just want to buy you pizza. I’ll decide when I get back. Bye.”

Nat hangs up the phone. It was totally a date question. She’d kissed him the last time they saw each other, and she was definitely interested, and here she was in Stalingrad, and it was real, and he was real.

She leaves the city that night, not looking back on something she’s placed firmly behind her.

*

“Okay, I have to know,” Bruce says.

It’s morning, and the three of them are sitting around the kitchen counter drinking coffee.

“Know what?”

“Maria says she doesn’t know where you guys go. Like, after missions. How can that be? Don’t they track your phones or something?”
Clint smiles. “I know a guy in Portland who is better than any SHIELD tech you can find.”

“Aren’t you worried about, well, Loki?”

“I’d like to see him try and get through the security system I have.”

Bruce blinks. “Where is it?”

“Home,” Natasha says.

REDACTED

The first time he brings her there, she’s just out of training, and it’s Thanksgiving and she was going to stay at SHIELD and brush up on her language skills.

(Natasha realizes then how much he trusts her. This is his home. Not just a place to stay, but the one place he keeps from everyone.)

After Budapest, she brings Clint home, and takes care of him the best she can. She finds herself leaving stuff there, and wishing she could stay longer, each time.

After New York, she leads him up to bed, and puts her arms around him as they sleep. They ride his nightmares together, and do a lot of walking outside. She tells him she loves him while they sit on his stoop and watch the fireflies. He smiles at her and says it right back.

(They do not sleep that night.)

After Hydra, she waits until all the information is disseminated before coming home. (Nat knows Clint isn’t Hydra, but she also can’t stand the thought of being wrong, and being scared that she’s fallen in love with the very thing she used to be. Clint is safe, though, and when she does come home, she holds Lucky a little tightly, and kisses Clint a little too hard.

After Ultron, he leads her up to bed, and puts his arms around her as they sleep. They ride her nightmares together, and do a lot of walking outside. Clint tells her he loves her when she gets out of the shower. She smiles at him and says it right back.

(The others are there too. The team. They don’t question when Natasha knows where the dishes are, or that she and Clint share a room. To them, they are a unit.)

They have dinner in the living room, and Tony notices the stuffed koala on one of the shelves.

“When were you going to tell us about Australia?”

Natasha looks at Clint. He inclines his head, and she smiles.

“If the bugs didn’t kill him, I was going to.”

Clint grins. “Sounds about right to me.”

*fin*