[FIC] Rituals - Chapter Three (Clint/Natasha)
Title: Rituals
Author: CelesteAvonne
Characters/Pairing: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff
Rating: M, for swearing and sex
Word Count: 17150 (Completed)
Disclaimer: For fun and fun alone. All hail the great and mighty Joss and the venerable Stan Lee.
Warnings: Spoilers for the Avengers movie
Summary: After defeating Loki with the Avengers, Clint and Natasha spend 24 hours in a hotel suite. Together they recover from the trauma inflicted on each of them by Loki. As Clint’s memories return, he relives the various encounters with Natasha that lead them to where they are now, beginning with Agent Barton’s failed mission to kill the Black Widow in Cairo.
Previous Chapters:
+Chapter One
+Chapter Two
New York
Present day
12:24 p.m.
This is one of their rituals. After every mission, since... well, he can’t remember.
But the shower part. It's hard to forget.
And this is a fine shower. In times past, they’ve had outdoor facilities with cold lake water and the very real danger of bacterial parasites. But their suite at the Carlyle has an enclosed tile shower that could comfortably house a pair of dolphins. It’s very SHIELD in its high-tech lighting, multi-directional jets, and temperature controls, but they both just want warm water and soap.
In times past, too, they’ve been injured and bone-weary, yet never quite on this scale.
They step naked into the spray and fold into each other. He closes his eyes and feels his memories bubbling close to the surface, but blurred like a damaged photograph, and he’s angry, because those are the ones he wants to keep. The memories of them together, the training, the fighting, the fucking-each-other-blind, all of them.
“Hey, Clint, here,” she says, tilting his chin up. “Lemme see.”
She takes his arm in her hands and runs her fingers all the way down, tracing rivulets in the shower spray. She does the same with the other, until she comes to the abraded spot where his armguard chafed him during battle.
“Not bad,” she says. “Your arms were pretty exposed, so you're lucky you got away nearly unscathed.”
It’s an ongoing argument they have, and he eases into it. “Armor restricts movement when you’re firing a bow.”
She grins. “Just sayin’ you’re lucky. My turn.”
He checks her arms next. Then he touches the raised welt on her neck, the one from his own bow string. It pains him, that purpling mark, but they say nothing. He moves instead to a minor cut on her collarbone, which he rinses clean. It’s not deep, but he remembers a time before, a mission in Mumbai, when a blade struck a centimeter from her carotid. He goes cold at the memory, at how close they come sometimes to losing...
But she’s moved on. She’s spread a gingery lather onto a mesh sponge, and she’s scrubbing masonry dust from his neck. She runs it down his back and he flinches at the pain in his kidney. She turns him around.
“Damn, Clint,” she breathes. “That’s a... bad bruise.”
He grits his teeth. “Armor absorbed most of it. Fell through a window.”
“You may have broken ribs,” she says. “Maybe that med screen’s not such a bad idea.”
He catches her wrists and turns her to face him. “Not gonna happen, Nat. I’ve had broken ribs before, remember? This is a bruise. Besides, what we’re doing right now, this is far more comprehensive than any SHIELD med screen.”
She lifts a brow. “One might say therapeutic.”
He traces the edge of a cut in her hairline. “That could need stitches,” he says.
“Maybe five hours ago,” she counters.
He sucks air over his teeth. “Gotta check the scalp.”
“I don’t wanna,” she says.
“Nat, we have to. Remember Dubai?”
She rolls her eyes. He hadn’t, not until just then, when it swam back up at him. That battle had been similar to this one: Urban setting, skyscrapers exploding, loads of broken glass, lots of it caught in her hair. In Dubai, their attackers had been Taliban mujahadin. Here it had been an alien race, the Chitauri.
He thinks again about her haircut. He wants to ask but doesn’t. He’s afraid he’s supposed to know...
She turns around and tilts her head, letting the spray paint her hair dark. With deft fingers, he parts and re-parts her hair, looking for tiny slivers of glass. He doesn’t find any.
“All good,” he says.
“Your turn,” she says. She spins him around, tousles his hair. Then he feels her lips graze his neck and ghost along the top of his shoulder. Her hands slide to his hips and she presses against him.
“Hey, you’re skipping ahead,” he says. He turns and pulls her into his arms. The water courses over them, between their bodies, and tired as he is, he feels a familiar stirring.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Her lips curve into a grin.
“God yes.”
He puts her against the smooth tile of the shower wall. She brings her legs around his waist, and he glides inside her.
It hurts. The bruises, the strained tendons, the thousand tiny nicks and cuts and scrapes. They’re both in pain and exhausted beyond human limitations. But he moves with slow, patient deliberation. This is their ritual. Their reconnection. Their reminder, that though their lives are extraordinary, they are human.
She comes suddenly, exquisitely, her whole body arching into it. He follows a moment later, releasing inside her, hot and blinding, and they’re both so spent, it’s all they can do to wrap themselves in towels and tumble into bed.
~~~
Port Sa’id, Egypt
2005
Two days after failed SHIELD Mission
to take out the Black Widow
“Here,” he said, drawing a short knife from his belt. “Turn around.”
She did as he asked without hesitation, and he sliced through the constricting threads that bound her. As he unwound the fabric, layer by layer, he felt her gaze on him, sullen and observant. Once he freed her arms, she kneaded the circulation back into them, and he was careful, in the way of lion tamers and bomb techs. But she remained surprisingly still. Not that it made him feel any safer.
He paused as he unwound the strip of cloth at her neck. “I'm gonna ungag you now. Don't scream, okay?”
She glanced at his knife, then arched her brow.
“Right.” He gave the fabric a little tug and it peeled from her lips.
“What is that?” she asked. “It's like, silk or something?”
“Spider silk,” he said. “Prototype.”
“Taken from Spiderman.”
He stared at her. “Borrowed. Yes. It's an organic compound five hundred times stronger than steel cable. Leaves a residue, though. Hope you aren’t too attached to that kameez.”
“I'm not,” she said. She raised her arms over her head, and Barton jumped back, ready for a fight. She paused mid-motion, her kameez bunched at her neck, exposing her midriff and the underside of a black bra. She smiled. “C'mon. Can't a girl get undressed without it being an act of aggression?”
His brow furrowed. “Just keep your hands where I can see them.”
She pulled the kameez over her head and tossed it aside. “You caught me fair and square,” she told him. She leaned against the wall and arched her back, making the most of her slender waist and ample breasts. “What do you intend to do with me?”
“Really?” he said. “Does that even work?”
She swiveled her hips. He found an interesting spot in the wall above her head.
“Always,” she said.
“On trained agents?”
“On men,” she returned. “Some women.”
He crouched beside her, his face dangerously close to hers. “You murdered my team. Took them and the Russians out in seconds.” He was shaking and had to remember to breathe. “Until yesterday, I thought you were working with a partner, but then the South Africans... You lured them in, slaughtered them. And you were unarmed.”
“Aw,” she said, pursing her lips. “You're a fanboy.”
He glowered. “We were supposed to bring you in,” he lied.
“Who's we?”
“Not the CIA,” he told her.
“Urbanov's men wanted me alive. And I know why--”
“--Because of Zimsky.”
Romanoff angled away from him. “Little dogs barking up a whole forest of wrong trees,” she muttered.
“You know where he is.”
“I don't,” she said. “No one does.”
“But you do have Urbanov's command drive,” Barton said.
She gave him her impassive face.
“I saw you take it. At Cafe Melange. I didn't know what I was seeing at first. But I saw you take it from Urbanov's coat right after you killed Agent Cornish.”
Romanoff licked her lips. “You don't know, do you? You're standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down into an abyss, and you don't know how far down it goes. All you know is that your agency sent you to find me, and you're a good agent. You do as you're told. You follow your mission. You carry out your orders, without question. So you don't know...”
He understood she was leading him. He took the bait. “What don't I know?”
“That Arnault Zimsky is the good guy.”
Now Barton did laugh. “A man who heads a terrorist organization capable of leveling New York City is not a good guy.”
“You think your president can't do the same thing? Hasn't done the same thing?”
“That's not... the point is, the President wouldn't do such a thing. He's bound by rules, by society...”
“I'm sure the citizens of Hiroshima feel very differently.”
Barton sat back on his heels.
“Zimsky's a visionary,” she said. “He'll change the way people view the rules of society.”
“And you’re a believer?” Barton asked.
He watched her carefully, measuring her response. Her lashes lowered, but she didn't answer.
“Something else, then?” he said. “What hold does he have on you, Lady Romanoff?”
She folded her arms over her chest, and for a long moment she said nothing. Then, “It's Natasha.”
He extended his hand. She stared at it, then up at him. He read the incredulity in her expression. He saw her calculating, considering his motives. It was exactly what he wanted.
She took his hand.
He said, “Clint Barton.”
Her mouth quirked in a half-smile. “So. What's a girl gotta do for food around here?”