at the end of the rainbow
Actually, it turns out these sets are great for cleaning up my fic folder, so I think I’ll do at least a few more. Hope no one minds; I feel less guilty about never finishing them if I put at least some snippets up. ;)
Red
It’s not every day that he gets brought up before the team to be reamed for leaving dishes in the sink, Clint has to admit. And really, it shouldn’t even be such a big deal, because “It was only a few, guys!”
“A few dishes coated in radioactive nitrate,” Natasha points out from her seat at the table, cleaning under her nails with a throwing knife.
“There is no way that’s my fault. I had no idea that whatever the processor was spitting out was toxic. I mean, no way besides the look of it; did anyone else see it? Because it clearly spelled death.”
Orange
“And congratulations on your information gathering,” Qu said as he looked with satisfaction at the bound and gagged woman on the floor in front of him.
“Is that what you’d call it, sir?” Clint asked, uncertain, almost bewildered. As though he was looking for a rope to grab, to hold onto, and was waiting for his superior officer to fill it in for him.
“Living with a wanted operative for ten months? I’d say so,” the stocky Asian scoffed, giving Clint an intent look from under his lowered eyebrows. “What would you call it?”
“Loving her,” Barton replied with complete honesty, and the quiet background sounds in the room stilled.
Yellow
"You're supposed to be the more well-adjusted of the two of us," she whispers in his ear, laughing. Clint snorts, letting her know exactly what he thinks of that notion, and continues picking her up.
Green
Like it’s an achievement, like it’s something to be proud of - forty-one kills, he grins, his big eyes wide and brimming with pride. Forty-one bagged, and she tries to keep the roiling nausea in her gut down, tries to stop bile from rising and swamping her teeth, her tongue. It will be bitter and thin and just like this boy in fifteen years, in forty more kills. It will be nothing to make a life out of.
That’s the secret they don’t teach you in boot camp, in spy school. Taking lives doesn’t mean you’ll have one.
She stands in the doorframe with the bite of winter tearing at her bare feet, her bracing hands and the aching scar on her abdomen. Stands there as the warmth of her house blasts past her back and out into the open twilight air, like everything else she has built.
“Natalia?” He asks, confusion settling into the corners of his sloping eyes, the quirk of his set mouth, and her world continues to crumble around her.
She thought she had made it out, made it past the breach and set herself in an isolated corner of the time stream.
It turns out she had been shaping her own future all along.
(Fifteen years later he looks into her eyes again, still wide and gray and too shocked for pain, and pulls his hand out of her open wound as the vortex cuff engages. When she vanishes, thrown backwards into the far past, he is left with her blood on his hands and a slip of paper in his breast pocket, yellowed after all this time.
Natasha Romanoff, the bold black letters had ordered, and he had obeyed.
That was what every good little soldier did, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?
Fifteen years ago, at least, it had been.
The blood drips onto the ground, sliding down his fingers in slick crimson droplets, and he wonders if she could have saved him, fifteen years ago.
“Et tu, Brutus?” Clint murmurs to the night sky, and waits motionless for an answer that cannot come.)
Blue
All this rage, boiling under the surface, threatening to erupt out of her mouth with scalding words and clenched fists and the vice of fury, the sin of wrath -
Natasha closes her eyes and takes a breath, and as suddenly as that, the anger vanishes. He stares at her, transfixed, wondering numbly where it could be, if it's always there luring beneath the surface, if it’s possible the heat wave of her rage can been replaced by this cool calmness so quickly -
When she opens her eyes and looks at him, sea-gray eyes clear and sharp, he shudders.
So that was the gift of women, to put aside their emotions and function, to stand with their hands on the sink gasping with sobs and be able to set it aside, wipe their cheeks and walk smiling out to face the world.
Watching her square her shoulders and turn, only the tense line of her jaw a sign that something is wrong, he realizes he doesn’t envy that gift at all.
Indigo
“Natasha. You’re the queen of keeping secrets. If the Avengers know, it’s because you wanted to tell them.”
She glanced up from her hands, framed in the soft sunset above the city skyline as she leaned against the balcony railing. None of her defenses were raised, no blithe assurance or edged amusement painting her face. In that moment, Coulson saw only the woman burdened with too many cares, shoulders bowing under the weight of them all.
“Would you have kept it from them?”
Violet
His hand tightens on hers, callouses rubbing over the curve of her knuckles, the tiny white scars where she learned to catch knives hilt-first.
“You’re not going alone,” he tells her, and in that moment he is everything she knows him to be: quiet and comfort and dependable, steady, looking down the path of his own choosing without flinching. It’s the only way he can cope with the demons that have gathered in his shadow, in the periphery of his vision.
She curls her fingertips in his palm, sensing the pulse that threads through her grasp, and thinks of mountains, of sunrises, of beautiful green mornings where the peace of the world settled like mist on the glowing forests. Of things she will never get to see.
“The night’s coming,” she says, holding his gaze, and there is no resignation in her heart. The corner of his mouth quirks, his hand warm in hers, and the scratched surface of the picnic table pricks the skin of their arms.
“Then we’ll get to see the stars.”
An echo of what he told her all those years ago, running with her through the endless trails of the bounded wilderness; of the constellations they glimpsed through the canopies, through the stretching fingers of the ashes and oaks and pines with sweet-scented sap beading in the creases of charcoal-gray bark.
Change is coming, coming around a corner bearing a new world, a new future, a new universe to spread before the story of her life.
For the first time, Natasha doesn’t fear it.
***
“So where are we going?” Natasha asks, looking across the car at her partner. There’s a crisp bite of fall in the air, a hint of gold to the leaves that rustle in the wind; change is coming, with all that entails, and there is never any stopping it.
“I don’t know.” Clint shrugs, shoulders lifting under the soft gray sweatshirt, and the sunlight warms the new lines on his face. “Ever been to Mexico?”
She smiles, and slides into the car.
Red
It’s not every day that he gets brought up before the team to be reamed for leaving dishes in the sink, Clint has to admit. And really, it shouldn’t even be such a big deal, because “It was only a few, guys!”
“A few dishes coated in radioactive nitrate,” Natasha points out from her seat at the table, cleaning under her nails with a throwing knife.
“There is no way that’s my fault. I had no idea that whatever the processor was spitting out was toxic. I mean, no way besides the look of it; did anyone else see it? Because it clearly spelled death.”
Orange
“And congratulations on your information gathering,” Qu said as he looked with satisfaction at the bound and gagged woman on the floor in front of him.
“Is that what you’d call it, sir?” Clint asked, uncertain, almost bewildered. As though he was looking for a rope to grab, to hold onto, and was waiting for his superior officer to fill it in for him.
“Living with a wanted operative for ten months? I’d say so,” the stocky Asian scoffed, giving Clint an intent look from under his lowered eyebrows. “What would you call it?”
“Loving her,” Barton replied with complete honesty, and the quiet background sounds in the room stilled.
Yellow
"You're supposed to be the more well-adjusted of the two of us," she whispers in his ear, laughing. Clint snorts, letting her know exactly what he thinks of that notion, and continues picking her up.
Green
Like it’s an achievement, like it’s something to be proud of - forty-one kills, he grins, his big eyes wide and brimming with pride. Forty-one bagged, and she tries to keep the roiling nausea in her gut down, tries to stop bile from rising and swamping her teeth, her tongue. It will be bitter and thin and just like this boy in fifteen years, in forty more kills. It will be nothing to make a life out of.
That’s the secret they don’t teach you in boot camp, in spy school. Taking lives doesn’t mean you’ll have one.
She stands in the doorframe with the bite of winter tearing at her bare feet, her bracing hands and the aching scar on her abdomen. Stands there as the warmth of her house blasts past her back and out into the open twilight air, like everything else she has built.
“Natalia?” He asks, confusion settling into the corners of his sloping eyes, the quirk of his set mouth, and her world continues to crumble around her.
She thought she had made it out, made it past the breach and set herself in an isolated corner of the time stream.
It turns out she had been shaping her own future all along.
(Fifteen years later he looks into her eyes again, still wide and gray and too shocked for pain, and pulls his hand out of her open wound as the vortex cuff engages. When she vanishes, thrown backwards into the far past, he is left with her blood on his hands and a slip of paper in his breast pocket, yellowed after all this time.
Natasha Romanoff, the bold black letters had ordered, and he had obeyed.
That was what every good little soldier did, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?
Fifteen years ago, at least, it had been.
The blood drips onto the ground, sliding down his fingers in slick crimson droplets, and he wonders if she could have saved him, fifteen years ago.
“Et tu, Brutus?” Clint murmurs to the night sky, and waits motionless for an answer that cannot come.)
Blue
All this rage, boiling under the surface, threatening to erupt out of her mouth with scalding words and clenched fists and the vice of fury, the sin of wrath -
Natasha closes her eyes and takes a breath, and as suddenly as that, the anger vanishes. He stares at her, transfixed, wondering numbly where it could be, if it's always there luring beneath the surface, if it’s possible the heat wave of her rage can been replaced by this cool calmness so quickly -
When she opens her eyes and looks at him, sea-gray eyes clear and sharp, he shudders.
So that was the gift of women, to put aside their emotions and function, to stand with their hands on the sink gasping with sobs and be able to set it aside, wipe their cheeks and walk smiling out to face the world.
Watching her square her shoulders and turn, only the tense line of her jaw a sign that something is wrong, he realizes he doesn’t envy that gift at all.
Indigo
“Natasha. You’re the queen of keeping secrets. If the Avengers know, it’s because you wanted to tell them.”
She glanced up from her hands, framed in the soft sunset above the city skyline as she leaned against the balcony railing. None of her defenses were raised, no blithe assurance or edged amusement painting her face. In that moment, Coulson saw only the woman burdened with too many cares, shoulders bowing under the weight of them all.
“Would you have kept it from them?”
Violet
His hand tightens on hers, callouses rubbing over the curve of her knuckles, the tiny white scars where she learned to catch knives hilt-first.
“You’re not going alone,” he tells her, and in that moment he is everything she knows him to be: quiet and comfort and dependable, steady, looking down the path of his own choosing without flinching. It’s the only way he can cope with the demons that have gathered in his shadow, in the periphery of his vision.
She curls her fingertips in his palm, sensing the pulse that threads through her grasp, and thinks of mountains, of sunrises, of beautiful green mornings where the peace of the world settled like mist on the glowing forests. Of things she will never get to see.
“The night’s coming,” she says, holding his gaze, and there is no resignation in her heart. The corner of his mouth quirks, his hand warm in hers, and the scratched surface of the picnic table pricks the skin of their arms.
“Then we’ll get to see the stars.”
An echo of what he told her all those years ago, running with her through the endless trails of the bounded wilderness; of the constellations they glimpsed through the canopies, through the stretching fingers of the ashes and oaks and pines with sweet-scented sap beading in the creases of charcoal-gray bark.
Change is coming, coming around a corner bearing a new world, a new future, a new universe to spread before the story of her life.
For the first time, Natasha doesn’t fear it.
***
“So where are we going?” Natasha asks, looking across the car at her partner. There’s a crisp bite of fall in the air, a hint of gold to the leaves that rustle in the wind; change is coming, with all that entails, and there is never any stopping it.
“I don’t know.” Clint shrugs, shoulders lifting under the soft gray sweatshirt, and the sunlight warms the new lines on his face. “Ever been to Mexico?”
She smiles, and slides into the car.