Natasha's quiet for a little while, mulling the new information over, slowly sipping her drink. She toes off her shoes and draws her legs up in the sofa, tucking her feet under her.
"Barton has this trick," she offers finally. She's not sure if whether it's to make Tony feel better about his trust issues "You know, archer and all, he can do this whole William Tell thing. Shoot apples or whatever off people's heads." It's not like he walks around performing tricks anymore. But it's something they've spoken of before, and when they went undercover at that circus it became a bit of a problem.
"You know how damn good he is with a bow. It's not like he'd miss. And I've trusted him with my life before." Trusts him with her life, in fact. She taps her thumb against the side of her glass. It's nothing like as limiting as Tony's trust issues of course. But her sharing something even as trivial as this is sort of a big thing for her. Because it's private, and he'll be the first person in the world, outside of her and Clint to know about it. "But I can't."
Tony nods along with the start of the explanation, not entirely sure where it's going but quite willing to follow along and see where they end up. "Yeah," he agrees. Not that he knew about that specifically, but bullseyeing an apple doesn't seem like it'd be much of a challenge for their resident sharpshooter. Some of the things that guy can do with a bow don't seem like they should be possible. He's given up trying to rationalize it. Clint has secret sniping-related superpowers or something.
"Huh." He rests his elbows on his knees and considers her curiously, glass held loosely in his fingers. "I always thought you guys were..." He can't quite find the right words to finish that sentence. 'Psychotically codependent' is the phrase that springs to mind, but he's not sure it'd be taken in the spirit it was intended. Whatever. She knows what he means. Ever since the whole Loki thing he's got used to thinking of Clint-and-Natasha as a unit, a package deal. It's weird to think that there's something like this.
"We are," Natasha confirms, her voice a touch too tight. They are a unit. The two of them against the world. "That's what's so fucked up about it." It's such a stupid thing. A parlor trick. And it eats away at Natasha that she can't do it. Logically, she knows that it's safe, that Clint is a damn god with his bow, and she trusts him not to intentionally hurt her. But, when it comes down to it, she just can't.
They tried it once, but every time he raised the bow to aim at her, she flinched away. It got to the point where Clint refused to do it, for fear of hurting her should she move the wrong way at a critical moment. She knocks back her drink, even though she meant to take it slow, the amber liquid burning all the way down her throat.
"To be fair, he did shoot me in the shoulder once," she adds with a half-smile to bring the conversation away from her own aching inadequacies.
Natasha tugs her shirt down to reveal the round, penny-sized, white scar just above her clavicle on her left shoulder, close to her throat. "He was aiming for my heart." Her pale little smile blossoms into a full grin at the look on Tony's face. "We didn't always fight on the same side, you know."
He eyes the scar with great interest. He doesn't really know anything much about Natasha's history - after all, he was holed up in the lab hacking various highly classified files when she was playing Loki - and for some reason it never occurred to him to think that she and Clint might have started out on opposite sides. It makes the weird codependence thing they've got going on all the more incredible. "That's gotta be one hell of a story."
Natasha sets down the empty tumbler on the table and grabs her beer in its stead. She lets her shirt slip back into place, though the scar is still half-visible, peeking out beneath the fabric. "There's not much to it," she says with a half-shrug, taking a small sip of her beer. "But ask anyone at SHIELD and I'm sure they'll happily tell you all about it.
It's no secret how she came to SHIELD. If he'd pressed, she probably would've told him. Hell, she told Loki. There's no reason why she couldn't tell Tony. Except, with Loki she had something to gain. She used her secrets as a tool to get to his. "You should ask someone how Fury lost his eye sometime. I bet every agent has their own take on that one."
"Barton has this trick," she offers finally. She's not sure if whether it's to make Tony feel better about his trust issues "You know, archer and all, he can do this whole William Tell thing. Shoot apples or whatever off people's heads." It's not like he walks around performing tricks anymore. But it's something they've spoken of before, and when they went undercover at that circus it became a bit of a problem.
"You know how damn good he is with a bow. It's not like he'd miss. And I've trusted him with my life before." Trusts him with her life, in fact. She taps her thumb against the side of her glass. It's nothing like as limiting as Tony's trust issues of course. But her sharing something even as trivial as this is sort of a big thing for her. Because it's private, and he'll be the first person in the world, outside of her and Clint to know about it. "But I can't."
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"Huh." He rests his elbows on his knees and considers her curiously, glass held loosely in his fingers. "I always thought you guys were..." He can't quite find the right words to finish that sentence. 'Psychotically codependent' is the phrase that springs to mind, but he's not sure it'd be taken in the spirit it was intended. Whatever. She knows what he means. Ever since the whole Loki thing he's got used to thinking of Clint-and-Natasha as a unit, a package deal. It's weird to think that there's something like this.
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They tried it once, but every time he raised the bow to aim at her, she flinched away. It got to the point where Clint refused to do it, for fear of hurting her should she move the wrong way at a critical moment. She knocks back her drink, even though she meant to take it slow, the amber liquid burning all the way down her throat.
"To be fair, he did shoot me in the shoulder once," she adds with a half-smile to bring the conversation away from her own aching inadequacies.
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