Spy Code Language
Title: Spy Code Language
Fandom: Avengers, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: PG
Characters/pairings: Natasha Romanov/Clint Barton, Laura Barton, Phil Coulson, Pepper Potts, Steve Rogers
Warnings (including spoilers): Spoilers for Avengers 1?
Wordcount: 2,707 words
Author’s note: Written for the be-compromised Valentine's Day Mini-Promptathon.
Summary: Five times Natasha shows Clint she loves him, and the one time he finally gets it.
~~~~~
1.
The last of the guards goes down, twitching with the last of Natasha’s Widow’s Bite. The only sounds in the room are the heavy breathing of Natasha and Barton, her partner of nearly a year. He groans, stepping over the body of one of his opponents and squinting around the shadow-y basement that was-- until recently-- home to a successful terrorist cell.
“Where’d he go?” Barton whines.
Natasha shoots him a glare, which softens when she notices Barton favoring one side. His attitude is a gentle relief for the pain, but he is systematically searching for their target, so she lets it go. Doctor Kheda is too dangerous to allow distraction; it will be hard enough to take the skilled fighter and delirious demagogue in alive.
Still, Natasha glances Barton’s way every so often, marking his limp as it gets worse. And it’s lucky she is, because that extra second of reaction time saves his life.
Kheda leaps from behind a broken desk, his heavy metal staff with a dense pommel on the end already swinging toward Barton’s head. Sensing the movement, Barton moves, but he is hurt and will not escape severe injury. Natasha calculates potential outcomes faster than most trained agents could think, and Kheda’s skull is in pieces before his swing is two-thirds complete.
Barton hits the concrete floor and scrambles away from Kheda’s corpse. The huge clatter of the staff echoes against the walls when it slams to the floor. Natasha tucks away her gun while Barton drags himself to his feet with a pillar.
“What the hell, Romanov!” he shouts. His voice echoes, too, and is laced with pain as he clutched his ribs. Mostly, though, he’s furious. “We needed him alive!”
”Not as much as we need you alive,” she thinks, and feels sicks. Out loud, she says cooly, “There are other ways to get the intel we need.”
Barton stares at her in disbelief and disgust. “This isn’t how SHIELD works.”
He doesn’t look at her for the rest of their now extended mission, and his report at the end has the higher-ups giving her cautious looks for weeks to come. Eventually, everyone forgets the mission that ended with a dead cult leader.
Natasha never forgets it.
2.
It’s a further two years past the mission in Chechnya that Clint-- Clint, now, and for a while-- invites her along on his week’s leave. They use aliases to get a flight out to middle America, and Clint doesn’t explain where they’re going until they’re in a randomly selected rental car beyond the possible reach of bugs. Natasha approves of the safety measures, right up until she learns where they’re going.
“You have a family?”
Clint raises an eyebrow at her, somehow, while keeping his eyes on the road. “Surprised?”
‘Yes,’ she thinks, gobsmacked, though her expression is nothing more than startled. ‘Why do you work for SHIELD, take the most dangerous missions, when you have people to go back to?’ She doesn’t let herself think ‘Why do you partner with one of the most dangerous agents in SHIELD?'
“Surprised anyone else could put up with you,” she jokes.
Clint huffs. “Laura’s a sweetheart. And her husband, my brother, is worse than me. He’s doing five to ten right now. We think he’ll be okay when he gets out.”
Natasha blinks, but otherwise ignores the lighthearted ramble that tells her more about Clint than everything she’s learned in three years. It all makes her even more apprehensive when they turn onto a dirt road, and then another, smaller dirt road, and eventually come into view of a series of wide, planted fields, and quaint red farm buildings. Barns, and outhouses, and a big house for a loving family to live in. Natasha thinks she saw this in a book once.
A few birds call in the distance as they walk to the front door. It’s misty out, and it seems surreal to be walking into someone’s life like this. Clint’s life. Clint has a life.
He leads the way, calls out to his sister-in-law as they walk right in, navigates thoughtlessly around furniture and cluttered toys to embrace a pretty young woman with a very young girl on her hip. Clint’s smiling, kissing Laura on the cheek, ruffling the girl’s hair, and they’re both smiling up at him. Then there’s a whoop, and a little boy races out from another room to squeeze Clint’s legs.
“Woah there buddy, gotta be careful! You’re pretty strong! Don’t take out my knees!” Clint kneels to hug the boy as well.
Natasha is frozen, standing awkwardly in the front room. Her hands are folded in front of her instinctively; polite, unobtrusive, non-threatening. There’s a doll on the floor by her foot, a tea set on a low table beside her knee. Laura’s eyes, dark and unsuspecting, turn to Natasha, and Laura lights up.
“You must be Natasha,” she says, and bounces a little, making the girl-- hardly more than a baby-- loll and smile. “Clint’s told us all about you. Come in, make yourself at home.”
At home. A longing, fierce but long-suppressed, reignites in Natasha’s chest as she takes in the warm decor, the signs that these rooms are lived-in to their richest capacity; not full of expensive things, but full of beloved things. Like the doll under her foot.
Natasha blinks. She didn’t even notice stepping forward, toward Clint’s family, and squashing the plushie beneath her.
She must give a good excuse, because Laura only looks puzzled, not offended, when Natasha walks out of the house. Clint, for the brief moment she looked at him, is taken aback, and then hurt.
Natasha tries hard to forget the knowledge that she caused that pain on the way back to the airport.
3.
Natasha regrets the visit to the farm for a long time. She’s not sure if she regrets following Clint without intel regarding their destination, or leaving so quickly-- maybe he’s angry that she was rude to his family?-- but either way their relationship suffers.
It’s not immediately apparent. Strike Team Delta is the feather in SHIELD’s cap at the moment, though admittedly only among the higher echelons; and of those, not among some who disapprove of either the Black Widow or Hawkeye. Still, their missions go off without a hitch, and no one at SHIELD would be able to tell anything is wrong.
Except for the person who knows them best.
“What did I do to deserve this?” Coulson mutters into his palm. He’s covering his eyes, his only escape from Natasha perched on his desk with her legs draped over his chair.
“You asked if there was anything you could do to help,” she reminds him.
“I meant words of support. A few days off.”
“How do I make him forgive me?” Natasha muses aloud. “He doesn’t want his old enemies hunted down, he doesn’t need training in combat or tactics or espionage-- except table manners, and that’s not really relationship-building.”
“Combat training is relationship-building?” Coulson queries.
“It can be.”
“Natasha, this isn’t exactly my wheelhouse,” Coulson explains. He moves in the chair, then stops when Natasha’s foot hits his sternum.
“What would you do to inculcate good feelings from, say, Maria?”
Coulson squirms. “What, why Maria?”
“Is there someone else?” She raises an eyebrow.
“Okay, uh. Spend time with them, compliments, pay attention to them… share hobbies?”
“Bingo.” Natasha lifts herself off the desk without messing up Coulson’s papers. She smirks at him. “You can go now.”
“This isn’t over, Romanov,” he warns, but he’s smiling just a little, so she doesn’t need to pack for Siberia in the immediate future.
She does consider pulling strings to get Coulson shipped there when Clint walks in on Natasha practicing in the archery range, and looks like someone strangled his dog in front of him.
“Tasha…”
“Clint. Want to practice?” He doesn’t look appreciated. Natasha smiles warmly. “I think I’m getting the hang of this. Hitting the target, at least.”
Clint steps closer and checks her target. “Nice grouping.”
She is mostly hitting the middle few rings. “Thanks. Want to give me some pointers?” She nudges him with an elbow.
“Soon you’ll be better than me,” murmurs Clint.
Uh-oh. “Not likely,” Natasha replies lightly. “Come on. Take a lane, trounce me. It’s for training.”
“I’ve actually got to get to a briefing.” Natasha glances at his practice clothes and the bow and quiver he’s carrying, but he’s still looking at her target. “See you.”
“See you.” The door clicks shut behind Clint. “Damn you, Coulson.”
4.
The door to Natasha’s apartment unlocks and opens. As she’s not expecting any visitors, she’s behind the sofa with the nearest firearm aimed at the door when Clint storms in, a sheaf of papers clenched in his fist, face red. “You’ve been going through my mail?!”
Ah. Natasha stands, pointedly tucking away her weapon and glaring at the door. “Have you forgotten how to knock?”
“Have you forgotten how to be a decent person?” he shoots back, sharp enough that it hurts more than it should. “You took my mail. I want it back.”
Natasha brushes hair from her face, containing her own anger. “I screened out hate mail from agents too blinded by grief and prejudice to--”
“You. Took. My. Mail.” Clint walks right up to her, his chest heaving. Natasha isn’t afraid of him, but he is making a strong tactical point. “I want it back.”
“It’s gone.”
He grits his teeth and breathes for a few moments. “Then I want you to stop. You think I can’t handle a few idiots who can’t tell between me and Loki? Think I’m fragile?”
Natasha glares back. “I think you don’t deserve the things they’re saying.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” Clint says bluntly. “Stay the fuck out of my stuff,” he finishes, and walk through the open doorway of her apartment.
For lack of a better reaction, Natasha shuts the door and whispers “Damn you, Coulson,” to the empty room.
5.
Natasha’s staring at the timer on the stove when the elevator dings. Natasha looks around the kitchen frantically, checking off a mental list for the various dishes she’s prepared. Everything is in place, and she lets out a shaky breath, more panicked over cooking dinner than she ever is about preparing biological weapons in the backs of moving vans.
Clint and Steve, back from training with the Cavalry in Central Park, and Tony, Bruce and Pepper, who probably met them on the way up, file in. Her mud-speckled teammates immediately fall into chairs and start serving themselves; good manners, while valued among the team, are understood to wait until hungry bellies are fed.
Bruce and Tony tuck in with a bit more decorum, while Pepper leans against the counter beside Natasha. “Looking good so far,” she says from the corner of her mouth.
Natasha checks. Yes, Clint is devouring the meal. But then, they all do that after working out. Every last Avenger has a prodigious appetite.
“Even Tony noticed at this point,” Pepper says consolingly. “I promise you, this is a recipe for success.” With a wink, Pepper sits beside her boyfriend and puts together her own plate.
Eventually, Steve has stuffed enough food in his gullet and joins Natasha by the stove. “Not hungry?” he asks congenially, patting his convex midsection. “The food is great tonight.”
“Thanks, but I’m waiting for dessert to come out.”
“You cooked all this?” Steve sounds surprised; fair, considering Natasha hasn’t cooked since they moved into the Tower and has on more than one occasion declared that she never planned to. “What’s for dessert?” he asks.
“Pineapple upside-down cake.” Natasha doesn’t look away from the timer, willing her heartbeat to slow down.
“Ahh.” Steve is definitely grinning. Natasha suppresses her blush masterfully. “Clint’s favorite.”
“Is it?” she says innocently.
“I’m sure he’ll… appreciate it.”
Natasha flexes her shoulders. Steve laughs and heads back to the table. Seconds for the super soldier, then.
The timer dings. Natasha silences it and pulls the cake out of the oven. It’s perfect. She scoops it straight onto a platter and puts it in the center of the table.
Across the table, Clint’s eyes are round like saucers and his mouth is hanging open. Pepper giggles.
“Five minutes to cool,” Natasha announces sternly.
“You’re my hero,” Clint says, and he does indeed sound like one of their endless scores of fans. The others laugh. Natasha smiles slightly and starts to make her own plate.
After dinner, when Steve and Tony are practicing teamwork skills like first-graders at the sink, and Bruce and Pepper are bringing them dishes and wiping down the table, Clint bumps Natasha with his shoulder. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
Clint clears his throat. “You cooked all my favorites.”
“Yep.”
He squirms. Natasha does not watch from the corner of her eye, and does not find it very cute.
“You’re a really great friend, y’know? I’m really lucky.” He hugs her from the side, so she can only hug one of his arms back. And then he kisses her cheek, just quickly, and then disappears.
Bruce and Steve leave quickly through the door to the entertainment room, Steve dragging an oblivious Tony in his wake. Pepper is giving Natasha a very apologetic look.
“He must be really stupid,” she says sympathetically.
“Damn you, Pepper.”
1.
“Okay. Clearly the normal foolproof methods aren’t going to work.” Pepper gestures emphatically with her martini. It’s only her second, so she’s loose, but in no danger of spilling.
Natasha, fixing her fourth, wishes for once that she could get drunk more easily. She reclines on her sunning chair, enjoying the scent of the flowers Pepper had arranged around her honest-to-God balcony jacuzzi, and gestures her friend to continue.
“We’re going to have to move on to methods he’d have to actually be deaf to misunderstand.”
Natasha cringes slightly, but doesn’t tell Pepper that Clint actually is partially deaf; he doesn’t like people to know unless it’s relevant to a mission.
“You’re going to go up to him and say ‘Clint, next Sunday is Valentine’s Day. I have a reservation for dinner at The Water Club and I want you to go there with me because I care about you romantically.’”
Natasha laughs, because Pepper actually tried to imitate her voice, and then sighs. “I can’t just say that. What if he’s not oblivious, he just doesn’t… want me like that, and I ruin everything putting it out there?” She stares out at the beginning of the sunset over the skyline of Manhattan.
“You’re a professional spy. How are you having so much trouble with this?” Pepper says a bit wildly. Natasha looks up at her pink cheeks and realizes that Pepper might actually be on her third drink.
“This isn’t for work. I can’t just shoot him if he shoots me down,” she jokes dryly.
“I wouldn’t shoot you down.”
Natasha spins in her chair. Clint is standing in Pepper’s living room, mere feet away from the open balcony doors. “I’m supposed to tell you dinner’s ready,” he says faintly.
She just stares at him. At her side, Pepper is curled up in her recliner so that Clint can’t see her, and as though he didn’t already know she was there. Definitely the third drink.
“I… would… love to go… on a date? With you?” Clint manages, looking less and less certain as the sentence progresses.
“Good,” Natasha blurts. She nods stiffly. “We’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Clint nods back, then turns on his heel and walks away quickly.
A second later, Pepper pops up and throws her arms around Natasha’s neck. “That was like being in high school,” she laughs. “I’m so happy for you!”
Natasha hugs her back, slowly relaxing from Defcon 1. “Thank you, Pepper”
They both chug some water and proceed, in a very sophisticated manner, downstairs to dinner. Pepper sits beside Tony and Natasha sits in the seat next to Clint.
He bumps her shoulder. “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“I care about you romantically too.” He grins very wide and she has to elbow him in the gut, but as he’s doubled over, he kisses her temple, so that’s okay.