Fic Rec: Perception Filters by cerebel (Clint/Natasha, implied Clint/Loki)
cerebel is one of these incredibly talented writers, who can take on the most absurd AU's (like her chaptered WIP, in which Loki and the Avengers are students in a dance academy and the SHIELD agents are dance instructors), and they still immediately draw you in, no matter how absurd they might seem. You just completely forget to switch on your disbelief, because it's just so entertaining, so sweet and somehow still real in a way you wouldn't have thought possible.
She can also turn around and serve the most chilling, dark tales, without resorting to any of the typical, classical dark!fic tropes, which is even more impressive, when one considers the central character of Perception Filters, Clint Barton.
Although Natasha's voice is detached and analytical, we come to realise that her narrative is unreliable: There are too many things she doesn't know (or doesn't want to know) about her own needs and motives. Her distance serves to not examine too closely what she doesn't understand. Looking further, this isn't even about Loki (or perhaps it is ;).
I am not even sure to whom I am reccing this. It's not exactly a Clint/Natasha fic-it's not really about any connection between them, and it's not really a tale about Clint/Loki. It's mostly a precise manual of Clint Barton and a description of his deconstruction, but at all times, we have the feeling we are standing too close to him, and because we see all the intricate details, somehow the truth of who he really is, the big picture, evades us in the end.
cerebel's achievement here is that she lets us think that we gain an understanding of his inner workings, but in the end, like Natasha, we come to the realisation, that all we have, is only the understanding of our own inadequacies.
She adds a blindfold. The difference is palpable; he gives himself to her more easily than he ever has. So there’s an element of detaching him from the world, too. There’s an element of turning off his mind.
Natasha takes that to heart, and next time, adds a gag. He’s flinched away every time she’s tried to tie his hands, but still, she reaches for them, winds a tie around his wrists. Blue silk; she took it, once, from the neck of a Thai businessman, before breaking his arm and leaving him for his wife to find.
There’s nothing beautiful or elegant about Clint this way. Still, she is drawn to him. She skims a hand over his shoulders, feeling the leashed power of his body. Incredible.