To an Outside Observer (3/?)
So, Chapter 3 finally happened.
Links to previous chapters here:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
or, on AO3
A/N: As always, absolutely all the love and thank you's to im_ridiculous, who has been wonderful throughout this whole thing. And big love to the 1.3 people that still want to read this. You are all my favourites. Feedback (of any variety) is always embraced!
They are sent in as a couple of honeymooners, with instructions to play up the romance enough to draw the attention of a diplomat who often gets a little too possessive over things he doesn't own, and avoids practising his trade as often as possible.
It should be easy. Over the years of their partnership such a setup had become routine.
It had made sense.
But now as they board the plane it’s like falling through the rabbit-hole.
The world is upside down and Natasha feels too large all of a sudden, a stranger in a strange land, her red hair a warning flag to the civilians around them. Exhaustion is beginning to overwhelm her, the events of the last twenty four hours catching up. She’s nervous and she cannot understand why.
Where Clint would have once grabbed her hand to maintain their cover is now taboo, crossing a line that was drawn the night before, when she avoided his touch and closed the door in his face.
She clenches her empty fist and smiles thinly at the air hostess as she stands aside to allow Clint into the seat by the window.
He glances at her as she slides into the seat next to him. Unsurprisingly for the both of them, (because it always was and it always had been, and it probably always would be) Clint is the first to break the silence, leaning in close as he studies the fake passports, his voice inaudible above the chatter on the rest of the plane.
“John and June, huh? Think SHIELD are ever going to employ anyone with an imagination?”
Natasha looks at him blankly and answers. “No.”
He winces almost imperceptibly, and Natasha feels a surge of something uncomfortably close to pity, although she is lost as to why - after all, he’s the one that...The train of thought derails at the same point that it had for most of the night before. She’s still unsure as to what, exactly, had prompted such a reaction.
She stares at the headrest in front of her, closing her eyes for a second to compose herself, trying to settle back into the professionalism that has served her purposes in the past. Turning to face him, she rests a hand lightly on his forearm, warm and firm under her grip.
“Let’s just do this, okay? Partners.”
She doesn’t mean to fall asleep on him. She’s just so damn tired.
***
The next five days fall just short of being normal.
The assignment is almost irritatingly simple; Natasha charms the target, a man named Bashir Abikhair - an overweight and impossibly hairy diplomat who avoids diplomacy whenever possible - with the potent mixture of her allure and apparent unavailability.
In a small antechamber off the central courtyard of the Beiteddine Palace it takes all of twenty minutes for Abikhair to reveal the requisite information about trafficking routes in and out of Lebanon that his status within the government had previously concealed. Clint plays the role of a jealous husband beautifully, storming in to the lavishly decorated room and tugging Natasha away from the scene in an act that is disturbingly sincere.
Later, as they sit side by side on the double bed that they’ve been taking turns to sleep in, his fingers twitch with leftover adrenaline and the morbid desire to shoot something, drumming a staccato beat into the bedsheets as a hollow alternative. Natasha stills his movements with cool fingers around his wrist, releasing it quickly as his movements halt.
“Will you just stop?” She asks, somewhere between exasperated and amused, but he can’t quite trust himself to know which anymore.
“Yeah” he says, sitting on top of his hands to eliminate the chances of himself resuming the actions of his fingers. “Sorry... I just-”
“Didn’t get to shoot anything?” She asks, and there’s definitely a wry smirk on her face now. He finds himself mirroring the expression, letting out a huff of air in an approximation of a laugh.
He nods in agreement, amusement morphing into a quiet moment of contemplation resting comfortably between them.
He knows he doesn’t have to explain that it isn’t actually the shooting he missed.
No.
He knows she understands the quiet juncture before the release, when the world narrows down to angles and sightlines and the seconds between possibility and inevitability.
She knows because she has shared that viscous moment, has relished living in it for fleeting seconds too. Natasha understands.
“Haven’t had chance recently.” Clint murmurs, his voice still too loud in the silence that has fallen as they sit side by side. “Bobbi...”
Natasha rises fluidly, her movements too controlled to be unchoreographed.
“It’s your turn to take the bed.” she says, her voice carefully even.
She glances back towards him, supplying ‘I’m exhausted’ by way of explanation for her sudden movements, moving to lie on the narrow couch with her face to the overstuffed cushions. After hours of restless silence listening to each other breathe, eventually they both fall into sleep.
Clint dreams of heavy limbs desperately trying to release an arrow, pulling his arms back with all his strength only for the shaft to sink slowly to the floor, again and again until he snaps the bow in half.
Natasha doesn’t dream at all.
They fly back to New York in a hush left thick with everything left unspoken.
***
Three weeks later, Bobbi kills a man on a bust gone awry, and Clint goes to find Natasha.
“She just started to cry.” He says, totally bewildered and unable to decode this reaction.
“I cried the first time I killed a man,” Natasha reveals, and his head snaps up, shocked.
She continues. “I was seven.”
***
Three days later, Bobbi finds Clint again, her face free from blotches and perfectly made up. It scares him a little. She sits him down calmly, a kind smile crossing her face, and this scares him more.
“Clint.” She says, and it sounds final.
It is.
Her smile slips a little, anxiety bleeding in around the edges of her chapped lips and a distant part of Clint wonders, when was the last time they kissed?
His sniper’s eyes watch her swallowing thickly and he can almost hear her words a beat before she says them.
“This isn’t working.”
Bobbi doesn’t humiliate him with cliches, because none of them would be true and this he knows is fact. Her words are quiet and final. He’s surprised by the tears that roll down her face because he never thought that he would be any great loss.
He interjects when her words falter.
“You deserve better.” he says quietly, because he knows it’s the truth. Bobbi looks up, startled by his admission, her eyes bright with tears.
“Not better, Clint. Just different.”
Her kindness makes him ache, a tightness in his chest that makes his lungs too large and his breaths shaky.
“Bobbi...” He says slowly, surprised by the broken note in his voice. “I mean it. I’m sorry... I wish - I mean... You deserve more. I’m sorry I couldn’t... that I couldn’t give it to you. I hope you find someone...”
He hadn’t realised until now how much he had come to rely on her presence, and the hole it will leave when she isn’t there any longer.
“I hope you find your someone.” he finishes.
Bobbi closes the door silently as she leaves, but it still echoes with finality.
Links to previous chapters here:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
or, on AO3
A/N: As always, absolutely all the love and thank you's to im_ridiculous, who has been wonderful throughout this whole thing. And big love to the 1.3 people that still want to read this. You are all my favourites. Feedback (of any variety) is always embraced!
They are sent in as a couple of honeymooners, with instructions to play up the romance enough to draw the attention of a diplomat who often gets a little too possessive over things he doesn't own, and avoids practising his trade as often as possible.
It should be easy. Over the years of their partnership such a setup had become routine.
It had made sense.
But now as they board the plane it’s like falling through the rabbit-hole.
The world is upside down and Natasha feels too large all of a sudden, a stranger in a strange land, her red hair a warning flag to the civilians around them. Exhaustion is beginning to overwhelm her, the events of the last twenty four hours catching up. She’s nervous and she cannot understand why.
Where Clint would have once grabbed her hand to maintain their cover is now taboo, crossing a line that was drawn the night before, when she avoided his touch and closed the door in his face.
She clenches her empty fist and smiles thinly at the air hostess as she stands aside to allow Clint into the seat by the window.
He glances at her as she slides into the seat next to him. Unsurprisingly for the both of them, (because it always was and it always had been, and it probably always would be) Clint is the first to break the silence, leaning in close as he studies the fake passports, his voice inaudible above the chatter on the rest of the plane.
“John and June, huh? Think SHIELD are ever going to employ anyone with an imagination?”
Natasha looks at him blankly and answers. “No.”
He winces almost imperceptibly, and Natasha feels a surge of something uncomfortably close to pity, although she is lost as to why - after all, he’s the one that...The train of thought derails at the same point that it had for most of the night before. She’s still unsure as to what, exactly, had prompted such a reaction.
She stares at the headrest in front of her, closing her eyes for a second to compose herself, trying to settle back into the professionalism that has served her purposes in the past. Turning to face him, she rests a hand lightly on his forearm, warm and firm under her grip.
“Let’s just do this, okay? Partners.”
She doesn’t mean to fall asleep on him. She’s just so damn tired.
***
The next five days fall just short of being normal.
The assignment is almost irritatingly simple; Natasha charms the target, a man named Bashir Abikhair - an overweight and impossibly hairy diplomat who avoids diplomacy whenever possible - with the potent mixture of her allure and apparent unavailability.
In a small antechamber off the central courtyard of the Beiteddine Palace it takes all of twenty minutes for Abikhair to reveal the requisite information about trafficking routes in and out of Lebanon that his status within the government had previously concealed. Clint plays the role of a jealous husband beautifully, storming in to the lavishly decorated room and tugging Natasha away from the scene in an act that is disturbingly sincere.
Later, as they sit side by side on the double bed that they’ve been taking turns to sleep in, his fingers twitch with leftover adrenaline and the morbid desire to shoot something, drumming a staccato beat into the bedsheets as a hollow alternative. Natasha stills his movements with cool fingers around his wrist, releasing it quickly as his movements halt.
“Will you just stop?” She asks, somewhere between exasperated and amused, but he can’t quite trust himself to know which anymore.
“Yeah” he says, sitting on top of his hands to eliminate the chances of himself resuming the actions of his fingers. “Sorry... I just-”
“Didn’t get to shoot anything?” She asks, and there’s definitely a wry smirk on her face now. He finds himself mirroring the expression, letting out a huff of air in an approximation of a laugh.
He nods in agreement, amusement morphing into a quiet moment of contemplation resting comfortably between them.
He knows he doesn’t have to explain that it isn’t actually the shooting he missed.
No.
He knows she understands the quiet juncture before the release, when the world narrows down to angles and sightlines and the seconds between possibility and inevitability.
She knows because she has shared that viscous moment, has relished living in it for fleeting seconds too. Natasha understands.
“Haven’t had chance recently.” Clint murmurs, his voice still too loud in the silence that has fallen as they sit side by side. “Bobbi...”
Natasha rises fluidly, her movements too controlled to be unchoreographed.
“It’s your turn to take the bed.” she says, her voice carefully even.
She glances back towards him, supplying ‘I’m exhausted’ by way of explanation for her sudden movements, moving to lie on the narrow couch with her face to the overstuffed cushions. After hours of restless silence listening to each other breathe, eventually they both fall into sleep.
Clint dreams of heavy limbs desperately trying to release an arrow, pulling his arms back with all his strength only for the shaft to sink slowly to the floor, again and again until he snaps the bow in half.
Natasha doesn’t dream at all.
They fly back to New York in a hush left thick with everything left unspoken.
***
Three weeks later, Bobbi kills a man on a bust gone awry, and Clint goes to find Natasha.
“She just started to cry.” He says, totally bewildered and unable to decode this reaction.
“I cried the first time I killed a man,” Natasha reveals, and his head snaps up, shocked.
She continues. “I was seven.”
***
Three days later, Bobbi finds Clint again, her face free from blotches and perfectly made up. It scares him a little. She sits him down calmly, a kind smile crossing her face, and this scares him more.
“Clint.” She says, and it sounds final.
It is.
Her smile slips a little, anxiety bleeding in around the edges of her chapped lips and a distant part of Clint wonders, when was the last time they kissed?
His sniper’s eyes watch her swallowing thickly and he can almost hear her words a beat before she says them.
“This isn’t working.”
Bobbi doesn’t humiliate him with cliches, because none of them would be true and this he knows is fact. Her words are quiet and final. He’s surprised by the tears that roll down her face because he never thought that he would be any great loss.
He interjects when her words falter.
“You deserve better.” he says quietly, because he knows it’s the truth. Bobbi looks up, startled by his admission, her eyes bright with tears.
“Not better, Clint. Just different.”
Her kindness makes him ache, a tightness in his chest that makes his lungs too large and his breaths shaky.
“Bobbi...” He says slowly, surprised by the broken note in his voice. “I mean it. I’m sorry... I wish - I mean... You deserve more. I’m sorry I couldn’t... that I couldn’t give it to you. I hope you find someone...”
He hadn’t realised until now how much he had come to rely on her presence, and the hole it will leave when she isn’t there any longer.
“I hope you find your someone.” he finishes.
Bobbi closes the door silently as she leaves, but it still echoes with finality.