FIC: Pas De Deux (for lar_laughs) - PG-13
Title: Pas De Deux
Author: hiddencait
A Gift For: Lar_laughs
Rating: T
Warnings: Past/off-screen noncon and forced prostitution, language, some violence
Pairings: Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane
Summary/Prompt Used: It wasn’t that Clint didn’t like her, but damned if the dancer wasn’t way too much of a diva for his taste. And really, he didn’t have to like her. He just had to keep her alive.
Authors Notes: A huge thanks to fringedweller for a super-last minute beta. Also giving credit where credit is due - Tasha’s backstory was inspired by Mercedes Lackey’s Reserved for the Cat, and the fight scene in the hallway was totally out of love for all of River Tam’s fight scenes in Serenity. Browncoats forever yall!
Banner by inkvoices
Pas De Deux
Clint resisted the urge to check his watch as he stood in the hall blocking the door to Natasha Romanoff’s dressing room. She’d been in there for over an hour now, and various themes of classical music that echoed down from the stage were close to driving him nuts.
This whole “showcase” thing just seemed ridiculous to him - there were something like five different scenes from as many ballets going on tonight with sets and costumes and music changes for each of them. It had to be sheer hell on the logistics side for the choreographers and ballet managers.
That was without even considering the logistical hell the showcase had been and would continue to be for Clint and the team from S.H.I.E.L.D. Private Security. Clint’s charge and the one other likely target had both been adamant that “the show must go on.” Even in the face of threats of bodily harm. It took someone truly masochistic to make a target of herself this way, Clint was sure. That, or the dancers were just too diva to know better; at this point Clint didn’t know which.
The music down the hall paused for a riot of applause and then another melody drifted down, the lilting tones belonging to Odile’s solo from Swan Lake. Clint blinked at the thought, more than a little bemused to realize he’d recognized the ballet. He idly wished he could blame his charge for that, but it was undoubtedly his CO’s fault.
It was also Coulson’s fault Clint was on this damned job in the first place. It was unsettling just how much of a patron of the arts the man was, up to and including deliberately looking for his dates at symphony events. His current cellist was only the most recent in a long list of classical musicians. It was a kink Clint really didn’t get. Still, in-tune significant others aside, Coulson usually could keep his cool regarding S.H.I.E.L.D. business.
Usually. While normally unflappable in the most dangerous of situations, Coulson had damned near fainted at the prospect of a protection job for the American Ballet Theatre. It was almost as bad as the time he’d gotten to meet renowned artist former-Army Captain Steve Rogers. Clint tried very hard not to picture the giddy version of Coulson; it shifted his world view too much, and not for the better.
Coulson’s questionable fanboy tendencies aside, Clint had ended up drawing the short straw with this chick. Or at least he figured it was the short straw. The series of threatening letters from what the ballet director had guessed to be an enraged obsessive fan had only referred to the “principal bitch” of ABT. Considering “principal” was a title that technically referred to some 20 dancers out of the entire corps, Clint and his team were probably lucky the threats had used the word “bitch” as well. Granted that tidbit had only narrowed things down a little - there were easily twice as many female principals as male.
It had been Stark’s brilliant assistant-turned-partner that had narrowed the field down enough to make the protection feasible - Pepper Potts was just as much an aficionado as Coulson, and she was the one who’d uncovered that Romanoff had been one of two dancers featured a few months’ prior as a publicity piece for ABT in a several page spread in NY Arts magazine. All the team had agreed it was a good bet the unhinged fan's attention had been pushed to a frenzy by the article. The spread and accompanying website had been plastered with the faces of both Romanoff and another dancer, Jane Foster. Dr. Jane Foster, Clint mentally reminded himself, not wanting another scene with Thor like when he’d forgotten to refer to the ‘brilliant lady’ by her proper title in Thor’s hearing. The totally unfairness of the woman being no shit an astrophysicist and a prima ballerina aside, Thor had taken one look at the tiny beauty and fallen completely head over heels and now was on watch for any perceived insult. Clint just stayed out of the big guy’s way; after all, it wasn’t like Clint was looking for a date in the ABT anyway.
And if on the odd chance he had been hoping for a hook-up, the kewpie doll look Foster had going for her definitely wasn’t his type. Nor, as he was adamant to even himself in his head, were redheads that were not only missing the requisite wild side but were so uptight as to hardly need their pretty little toe shoes.
He was saved from any further bitter mental contemplation about the tights and legs that continued upwards from the aforementioned toe shoes when the door to her dressing room opened, and Romanoff emerged dressed in some sort of flimsy princess dress, a pair of toe shoes dangling from her hands. Clint thought he remembered being told his charge was doing a solo from The Sleeping Beauty but damned if he could have recognized that from the costume she was wearing.
The aloof expression that Clint has so come to loathe was firmly in place on her face as she opened her mouth to speak, but a sudden violence blast of sound from somewhere out in the building cut her off.
Clint was instantly moving, grabbing his charge by the arm and pulling her with him down the hallway towards the emergency exits for a rendezvous as his team had planned for this sort of situation. Natasha was protesting the move, but Clint ruthlessly interrupted.
“No, we’re not staying, and oh by the way, that was a bomb. Likely set as a distraction to get to you or Jane and we need to-”
The appearance of an armed stranger blocking the exit had Clint stopping up short. Before the other man could do anything other than shout something in a language Clint didn’t know, Clint was pulling his own weapon and forcing his charge backwards again, rushing down the hall and ducking down another hall leading away from the performance stage and back towards the warm up rooms.
Clint tapped his ear bud, hoping the blast hadn’t knocked out the team’s comms. “This is Barton. I have the package with me and a hostile in pursuit.”
Coulson’s calm voice spoke in his ear. “Multiple hostiles noted about the building. Foster does not appear to be their objective. I repeat, Foster is not the primary package. Barton, go to ground. We’ll buy you time.”
“Got it. I better see you there, sir.”
“Affirmative. Now get the hell out of here.”
Clint didn’t bother to ask his charge how she felt about the idea; just held on to her arm and dragged her after him, through the warm up rooms and into the back hallways used by both the resident dancers and musicians and the more mundane employees like the janitors and ushers. Natasha had stopped protesting the treatment, or at least stopped protesting out loud. It was close enough as far as Clint was concerned.
He supposed he was just lucky she was keeping up and keeping quiet. And that she hadn’t actually been wearing her toe shoes when the bomb went off; they were moving a hell of a lot faster with her in the low flats she’d been wearing.
Clint hustled her along to one of the side doors of the building, hoping like hell whoever the goons were, they were at least somewhere else. The coast appeared to be clear, and he moved Natasha out of the building and into one of the inconspicuous vehicles his team had seeded the nearby parking lot with in case of this sort of emergency.
The ride to the safe house was silent as Natasha had seemed to draw in on herself as soon as they’d managed to get into the car and out of the parking lot safely. Clint had watched for a tail the entire drive, and as far as he could tell, he and the dancer were safe for the moment.
He pulled into the dingy apartment complex that had been chosen and hurried his charge out of the car and in through the back doors and down the hall to the apartment. It wasn’t any less dingy looking once they were inside, but it was clean for the most part and had any necessities they’d need to wait out the clean up at the Theatre until Coulson called them back in or came to relieve Clint. Whichever came first.
Clint roamed through the small apartment, checking closets until he found the go-bag he knew had to be there. It had the essentials in his opinion - coffee for him, vodka and a change of clothes for her.
“Here. Go change out of that costume. You’ll be more comfortable, and it’ll be a long wait here.”
She did as she was told without protesting, and that was enough to make Clint’s hackles raise a little. Since he’d been introduced to his charge, she’d refused to do anything without making a massive argumentative production about it. That she was this docile likely meant the attack had shaken her more than she was willing to admit. Clint sighed a little and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and silently wished Thor had been assigned the redhead instead of him. Only this time, it wasn’t so much out of aggravation with his charge, but more due to the fact that Clint had no experience whatsoever in actually comforting terrified women. He was better doing his job from a distance - surveillance, patrols, guarding various exits. Once he got up close, he was just at a loss with the personal stuff.
Nothing he could do about it now. He’d just have to wing it and hope he didn’t traumatize the Russian dancer any more than she already had been.
Somehow that sparked a thought. Russian… He thought back over the attack and the hostile who’d yelled at them in rage. The words hadn’t been any Clint knew, but they’d sounded familiar. He concentrated and was stunned at the image that came to mind with the memory of the language.
He’d been in the damned practice rooms watching Romanoff storm around in a fury that she was stuck with a bumbling American watching her every move. Clint hadn’t known her exact phrasing as she’d been cursing him out in her native tongue, but he’d gotten the gist of the sentiment.
Just as he had when Natasha’s attacker had shouted his fury in the hallway. Shouted in what Clint was becoming more and more certain had been Russian.
And Natasha must have known it.
Feeling himself almost began to vibrate with anger and trying desperately to force it down before he did something stupid like strangle his charge, Clint stalked to the bedroom door and thrust it open, coming to a halt when he saw the dancer curled up on the bed, her knees to her chest and eyes blank in a thousand-yard stare.
The look on her face almost killed his anger dead in his chest, but not enough to stop the words spilling out without him really intending it.
“You know them, don’t you? You fucking knew who they were and why they were after you and said nothing. Jesus Christ, are you out of your mind?”
Natasha hadn’t even flinched at his sudden tirade, only gripped her knees harder and rocked slightly. She pulled her empty gaze up to meet Clint’s and spoke, her voice flat.
“I learned to dance in Russia, learned to leap and spin and balance on my toes no matter what the pain. I thought that was all I would need to learn to survive, but my ballet master… he had other things to teach.” She sunk even deeper into herself in her seat on the bed, and Clint felt himself grow more sick than angry at her meaning. “He made me into a pretty little doll and gave me to men who liked such things. Men with money and power and a fondness for lovely little dancers.”
“But you got away. You came here.”
“I came here. I hoped that perhaps he would stay in Russia, that he would be content with all his other dolls. Foolish, but it was all I had to hope for.”
Clint blew out a breath and scrubbed a hand across his face. He didn’t even want to know what her life had been, or even what she’d been forced to do to make her way to the U.S. safely. But that didn’t make any of this make sense.
“So, so you escape - you move to another continent to get away from this guy. I mean you actually manage it - good for you. But what in the hell possessed you to join ABT? I mean even I know it’s one of the most well known on the planet, and I’m just a big dumb bodyguard! You had to know it would draw attention. You had to. So why?” He took a step towards her, his voice softening. “Why’d you join the troupe, Natasha? Why?”
She shifted in her seat and glanced at him sideways. “I have very specific skills. To be a dancer or to be a doll. There was no choice. And if I wanted to live on my dancing, I needed to belong to a troupe like this one, with renown and reserved tickets and magazine articles. I knew it could not last but I hoped.” She shrugged and looked away, then she spoke again, her voice even softer than his had been. “And because sometimes, there is such… joy on the stage.”
Clint didn’t need to be told that she wasn’t likely to find much joy elsewhere. He sighed, remembering a boy with a bow and the certainly that he’d found the very best thing in the world. He didn’t need to look at her to know the little girl in ballet shoes had her joy taken from her just as horribly as had that little boy.
“Fair enough.” He debated on asking another question or two, but for the life of him couldn’t figure out just what those questions would be. He didn’t really have time to ask them anyway.
A thud against the outer wall of the apartment and the sound of new raised voices warned their conversation had run out of time. How the hell had the bastard found them this quickly? He shook his head; it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting his charge out of the building safely.
“OK, we’ve got to get past them - there’s just no other way out, and the outer door won’t hold for long.” She looked as skeptical as Clint felt, but there weren’t any other options. “I’ll clear us a path and hopefully that will be the end of it. If they keep coming, or if one of them gets a lucky shot at me, you have to get yourself out of there, you got me?”
Natasha didn’t look nervous precisely, but she was clearly uncomfortable with the thought. Clint wasn’t sure if it was concern for him or for herself. Hopefully he could alleviate at least one of those concerns and maybe, just maybe give her a way to feel stronger than that bastard had intended her to be.
“If anyone gets a hand on you, you need to play to your strengths. Those legs of yours are a hell of a lot stronger than most, and you’ve got the trick of making them move only where you want them to,” he explained quickly moving out of the bedroom door with her close behind him, his eyes on his weapon as he double checked how many bullets he had in the clip. The answer was probably ‘not nearly enough,’ but he’d avoid telling her that as long as possible. “Kick as much as you can - it’ll give you distance and if you hit the right place, you can do some serious damage.”
“Which places?” she asked, her face intent on his.
“Kneecaps are a good one: if you can hit them from the side and force them inward, you can tear the hell out of the tendons. And the bad guys can’t chase you if they can’t run. Wrists, elbows, same thing. Focus your strength at any of the joints, and you can disable an attacker.” He bit his lip, wondering if he should give her one last piece of advice, and then decided what the hell. Anyone who forced her to go that far would deserve it. “If all else fails, if you can’t defend yourself any other way… Aim for the bottom of the chin with a high kick up. You could snap the fucker’s neck.”
Her eyes went wide and almost disgusted for a moment, but it was replaced quickly by calculation.
“If I have no other options, I will remember that one.”
Clint eyed her a moment and then nodded.
“Remember what I said - your job is just to get the hell out of dodge. Leave the bad guys to me. As soon as there’s a clear path out, you take it.”
“What if you’re aiming in the same direction that I have to run?” she asked, and Clint almost imaged her voice was faintly challenging.
“I don’t miss. Ever.”
Natasha gave him the same appraising look she had on the day they’d met, but this time Clint was almost sure she found something that impressed her. She nodded slowly.
“Alright. You shoot. I will run.”
“OK then.” Clint rose from his spot by the wall and moved over to stand in front of the door, pistol out and ready. Without being told, Natasha moved to the lock and waited for his signal.
Clint took a deep breath and silently gave a count down. 3…2…1…
Natasha flicked the lock and yanked back the door, and Clint opened fire before it was even completely open, bullets taking down two of their assailants before the thugs even realized their quarry was on the move. The mercs weren’t any slower on the draw than that, though - in seconds, they’d returned fire forcing Clint back down behind the door. He darted out to fire back, hitting another, but the bullets from the Russian side just kept coming.
“God damn it, there’s an acre of these guys,” Clint muttered, waiting for a beat of silence before leaning out to shoot yet another of their foes. There were still too many left. Clint cursed again, and began to lean out again, when suddenly his charge did something absolutely insane.
She ran. Bursting from behind the door and into the hall running full tilt like a sprinter off the block. Just as he’d told her to, though he distinctly remembered telling her to do so only when she had a clear path. Not in the middle of a damn fire fight!
He cursed again and darted back out to fire, covering her mad dash as best he could. He was suddenly, painfully glad it had been him assigned to her and not Thor. He could not afford to miss. Only Clint could have managed this kind of accuracy. And he was managing it - one bullet per mercenary, without a single shot wasted. Shame he just didn’t have enough bullets left for each merc.
Clint had kept count and knew the second his last bullet left the chamber. Natasha hadn’t reached the door to the street, sadly, and he just hoped like hell she’d make it. Then he didn’t have much time to hope for anything except that he’d get out of this shit hole alive. He started throwing punches and knees and elbows, anything to take his opponents down and/or keep one of those opponents between him and the various bullets still flying around. He barely had the time to risk a look to see how far the ballerina had made it, but what he saw had his jaw dropping and his movements stuttering to a halt. His distraction earned him a fist to the face, but Clint made up for it with a knee to the asshole’s crotch when the idiot turned to look too and went just as shocked. Clint couldn’t blame the merc though; it was an impressive sight.
Natasha was dancing. That was the only thing Clint could think to call it. She’d apparently taken his advice to use her ballet skills to heart, spinning down the hall, feet flashing out in breathtaking kicks and leaps far higher than someone that small should be able to manage. Several of their attackers tried to stop her, grabbing on to her wrists or hands, but she just moved with them as she might a dance partner, using their grasp as support to kick even farther and higher. Damned if it wasn’t breathtaking to watch.
Clint forced his eyes away from her graceful form and went back to his task, battering at his opponents as best he could. But Clint was only one man, and she was only a single dancer, extraordinary though she was proving to be. And there were decidedly more of the mercenaries.
Just went Clint felt almost sure they were going to go down under the weight of their opponents, a door slammed against a wall out of sight, and a familiar angry roar echoed down the hall. Bruce had entered the building.
“Thank god,” Clint muttered with a grin. “Natasha down!” he called, and he and his charge went limp and dropped to the ground just in time as his teammate opened fire into the hallway, taking down the mercs with a painful ease. A few of the attackers tried to flee from the onslaught from the slight should-be-un-intimidating figure of Bruce, but answering fire sounded from the other end of the hall as Clint’s boss and the rest of the team rounded another corner, cutting off the retreat.
The rest of the battle was pretty damned anticlimactic. Only one of the mercs tried pulling the human shield ploy, dragging Natasha from the ground with a knife to her throat. Clint had just cocked his head at his charge, and with a wicked grin, she kicked her right leg up, nailing her taller attacker right in the nose and spinning away before he could response with the knife. The merc surrendered rather quickly after that.
Figuring out what the hell had happened between the apartment and the theatre was more complicated than the firefight had been. Coulson had been halfway through a dressing down for Clint’s failure to respond via comm when Stark stormed in shouting something about amateurs who’d actually managed to hack his signal, jamming the comms in question. That mostly got Clint off the hook with his boss, though it left a lead weight in his stomach.
He’d come to the conclusion that these amateurs were anything but, and Coulson agreed with him. That Natasha’s former ballet master had managed to fund this kind of operation at all was worrying. Remembering the ballet master in question, Clint realized yet another worry.
“Tasha,” Clint called out. His charge turned, her eyebrow raised in obvious question at the nickname, but he ignored it. “Is he here? He’s not one of them, is he?” he asked, and she shook her head slowly. He turned back to Coulson with a sigh. “I was afraid of that.”
Coulson matched his frown. “It’s a setback. But if she knows who he is, we’ll get him. It’s just a matter of time.” Coulson turned away to continue directing the rest of the team in detaining the mercenary survivors, and Clint marveled a little at the fact that he was actually calmer after his boss’s announcement. Simple, straight to the point. ‘We’ll get him.’ It was good to hear.
The drive back to the theatre was just as silent as the drive to the safe house had been, if somewhat less hostile and far safer with the rest of his team flanking Clint’s vehicle. They were met at the door by some of the other principals and the manager. Natasha was all but tackled by Jane Foster, something that clearly bemused her and amused the hell out of Clint.
Who knew the redhead had apparently had a friend in the troupe who’d been worried about her? Clearly Natasha hadn’t.
Clint wished he could say that the ending of the story was as happy as Jane had been to pounce on her unharmed ‘friend,’ but he knew better.
Only a few hours later, he and Tasha were called into the ballet manager’s office to find Coulson waiting along with Coulson’s boss. Director Fury had founded S.H.I.E.L.D., and he was just as intimidating now as he had been the day Coulson brought Clint in, claiming the washed up archer would be an asset to their security team.
‘Course that day had gone better than Clint had ever expected, so maybe Fury’s presence wasn’t the death knell he was afraid of.
Natasha wasn’t as reassured by the sight of the tall dark director as Clint was, though he figured he’d be the only one in the room who could read her anxiety from her still form. After a long silent moment, Fury spoke, his attention focused on the Russian dancer.
“Is it over?” he asked, and Natasha didn’t even pretend she didn’t know what he meant.
“No. He will keep coming. He had never had a doll escape him before, and he always said that none ever would.” She kept her voice passive, but Clint saw her hands were shaking slightly. He resisted the urge to lean against her shoulder in support, knowing Fury would be watching Clint, too, for all that his eye seemed focused on the dancer.
“That’s what I thought. He’ll be dealt with eventually, just so you know. I’ve got enough connections to make sure that happens.” Fury was casual about dropping that bit of information, but clearly to Natasha it was practically a bombshell. Clint wondered if she’d ever expected to hear someone dismiss her abuser so easily. He’d kept her in thrall of his ‘power’ for so long, Fury’s certainty that the man would be taken down had to come as a shock. Fury went on, seemingly oblivious to the woman’s shock. “In the mean time though, I think you know the dancing here is out of the question.”
Natasha nodded slowly, and Clint was somewhat glad to see her manager mouthing a strained apology from behind Fury. Looked like there was another member of the troupe who’d be sad to see Tasha go.
“So, considering you’re officially unemployed,” Coulson broke in, suddenly, his bland voice actually startling Clint who’d been expecting Fury again, “how would you like to consider a job offer?”
Both Clint and Natasha’s jaws dropped at that. Even with his own completely off-the-wall recruitment, Clint wouldn’t have guessed this was coming. Tasha opened her mouth as it to speak and then closed it again, clearly not knowing what to say. Fury grinned wolfishly at her.
“Look girl, in case you hadn’t noticed, Coulson has a gift for recognizing potential in extraordinary individuals. As do I. I gotta say, that video of you dancing down the hallway was one of the most impressive demonstrations of a talented amateur at work that I’ve seen in years.”
Tasha frowned a little, clearly miffed at being called an ‘amateur’ anything, and Clint coughed covering up a laugh that might otherwise have gone a little hysterical. From the way damn near everyone in the room glared at him, he didn’t cover it up all that well. Fury shook his head, the side of his mouth twitching.
“As I was saying, Miss Romanoff. We could use someone like you: strong, multi-lingual, graceful, and lovely enough that most will underestimate you. What do you say?”
For the first time since Clint had met her, Tasha seemed to hesitate, and he couldn’t help speaking.
“It’s a third choice, Tasha, another way to use those skills of yours.”
Her eyes shot up and she pinned him in place with another of those assessing looks, then, slowly, she nodded.
“Alright,” she said softly. “You shoot. I will dance.”
Clint grinned back, ignoring the congratulations and welcomes from both of his bosses. Looked like he had a partner now, and damned if she wasn’t going to be enjoyable as hell to watch.
Author: hiddencait
A Gift For: Lar_laughs
Rating: T
Warnings: Past/off-screen noncon and forced prostitution, language, some violence
Pairings: Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane
Summary/Prompt Used: It wasn’t that Clint didn’t like her, but damned if the dancer wasn’t way too much of a diva for his taste. And really, he didn’t have to like her. He just had to keep her alive.
Authors Notes: A huge thanks to fringedweller for a super-last minute beta. Also giving credit where credit is due - Tasha’s backstory was inspired by Mercedes Lackey’s Reserved for the Cat, and the fight scene in the hallway was totally out of love for all of River Tam’s fight scenes in Serenity. Browncoats forever yall!
Banner by inkvoices
Pas De Deux
Clint resisted the urge to check his watch as he stood in the hall blocking the door to Natasha Romanoff’s dressing room. She’d been in there for over an hour now, and various themes of classical music that echoed down from the stage were close to driving him nuts.
This whole “showcase” thing just seemed ridiculous to him - there were something like five different scenes from as many ballets going on tonight with sets and costumes and music changes for each of them. It had to be sheer hell on the logistics side for the choreographers and ballet managers.
That was without even considering the logistical hell the showcase had been and would continue to be for Clint and the team from S.H.I.E.L.D. Private Security. Clint’s charge and the one other likely target had both been adamant that “the show must go on.” Even in the face of threats of bodily harm. It took someone truly masochistic to make a target of herself this way, Clint was sure. That, or the dancers were just too diva to know better; at this point Clint didn’t know which.
The music down the hall paused for a riot of applause and then another melody drifted down, the lilting tones belonging to Odile’s solo from Swan Lake. Clint blinked at the thought, more than a little bemused to realize he’d recognized the ballet. He idly wished he could blame his charge for that, but it was undoubtedly his CO’s fault.
It was also Coulson’s fault Clint was on this damned job in the first place. It was unsettling just how much of a patron of the arts the man was, up to and including deliberately looking for his dates at symphony events. His current cellist was only the most recent in a long list of classical musicians. It was a kink Clint really didn’t get. Still, in-tune significant others aside, Coulson usually could keep his cool regarding S.H.I.E.L.D. business.
Usually. While normally unflappable in the most dangerous of situations, Coulson had damned near fainted at the prospect of a protection job for the American Ballet Theatre. It was almost as bad as the time he’d gotten to meet renowned artist former-Army Captain Steve Rogers. Clint tried very hard not to picture the giddy version of Coulson; it shifted his world view too much, and not for the better.
Coulson’s questionable fanboy tendencies aside, Clint had ended up drawing the short straw with this chick. Or at least he figured it was the short straw. The series of threatening letters from what the ballet director had guessed to be an enraged obsessive fan had only referred to the “principal bitch” of ABT. Considering “principal” was a title that technically referred to some 20 dancers out of the entire corps, Clint and his team were probably lucky the threats had used the word “bitch” as well. Granted that tidbit had only narrowed things down a little - there were easily twice as many female principals as male.
It had been Stark’s brilliant assistant-turned-partner that had narrowed the field down enough to make the protection feasible - Pepper Potts was just as much an aficionado as Coulson, and she was the one who’d uncovered that Romanoff had been one of two dancers featured a few months’ prior as a publicity piece for ABT in a several page spread in NY Arts magazine. All the team had agreed it was a good bet the unhinged fan's attention had been pushed to a frenzy by the article. The spread and accompanying website had been plastered with the faces of both Romanoff and another dancer, Jane Foster. Dr. Jane Foster, Clint mentally reminded himself, not wanting another scene with Thor like when he’d forgotten to refer to the ‘brilliant lady’ by her proper title in Thor’s hearing. The totally unfairness of the woman being no shit an astrophysicist and a prima ballerina aside, Thor had taken one look at the tiny beauty and fallen completely head over heels and now was on watch for any perceived insult. Clint just stayed out of the big guy’s way; after all, it wasn’t like Clint was looking for a date in the ABT anyway.
And if on the odd chance he had been hoping for a hook-up, the kewpie doll look Foster had going for her definitely wasn’t his type. Nor, as he was adamant to even himself in his head, were redheads that were not only missing the requisite wild side but were so uptight as to hardly need their pretty little toe shoes.
He was saved from any further bitter mental contemplation about the tights and legs that continued upwards from the aforementioned toe shoes when the door to her dressing room opened, and Romanoff emerged dressed in some sort of flimsy princess dress, a pair of toe shoes dangling from her hands. Clint thought he remembered being told his charge was doing a solo from The Sleeping Beauty but damned if he could have recognized that from the costume she was wearing.
The aloof expression that Clint has so come to loathe was firmly in place on her face as she opened her mouth to speak, but a sudden violence blast of sound from somewhere out in the building cut her off.
Clint was instantly moving, grabbing his charge by the arm and pulling her with him down the hallway towards the emergency exits for a rendezvous as his team had planned for this sort of situation. Natasha was protesting the move, but Clint ruthlessly interrupted.
“No, we’re not staying, and oh by the way, that was a bomb. Likely set as a distraction to get to you or Jane and we need to-”
The appearance of an armed stranger blocking the exit had Clint stopping up short. Before the other man could do anything other than shout something in a language Clint didn’t know, Clint was pulling his own weapon and forcing his charge backwards again, rushing down the hall and ducking down another hall leading away from the performance stage and back towards the warm up rooms.
Clint tapped his ear bud, hoping the blast hadn’t knocked out the team’s comms. “This is Barton. I have the package with me and a hostile in pursuit.”
Coulson’s calm voice spoke in his ear. “Multiple hostiles noted about the building. Foster does not appear to be their objective. I repeat, Foster is not the primary package. Barton, go to ground. We’ll buy you time.”
“Got it. I better see you there, sir.”
“Affirmative. Now get the hell out of here.”
Clint didn’t bother to ask his charge how she felt about the idea; just held on to her arm and dragged her after him, through the warm up rooms and into the back hallways used by both the resident dancers and musicians and the more mundane employees like the janitors and ushers. Natasha had stopped protesting the treatment, or at least stopped protesting out loud. It was close enough as far as Clint was concerned.
He supposed he was just lucky she was keeping up and keeping quiet. And that she hadn’t actually been wearing her toe shoes when the bomb went off; they were moving a hell of a lot faster with her in the low flats she’d been wearing.
Clint hustled her along to one of the side doors of the building, hoping like hell whoever the goons were, they were at least somewhere else. The coast appeared to be clear, and he moved Natasha out of the building and into one of the inconspicuous vehicles his team had seeded the nearby parking lot with in case of this sort of emergency.
The ride to the safe house was silent as Natasha had seemed to draw in on herself as soon as they’d managed to get into the car and out of the parking lot safely. Clint had watched for a tail the entire drive, and as far as he could tell, he and the dancer were safe for the moment.
He pulled into the dingy apartment complex that had been chosen and hurried his charge out of the car and in through the back doors and down the hall to the apartment. It wasn’t any less dingy looking once they were inside, but it was clean for the most part and had any necessities they’d need to wait out the clean up at the Theatre until Coulson called them back in or came to relieve Clint. Whichever came first.
Clint roamed through the small apartment, checking closets until he found the go-bag he knew had to be there. It had the essentials in his opinion - coffee for him, vodka and a change of clothes for her.
“Here. Go change out of that costume. You’ll be more comfortable, and it’ll be a long wait here.”
She did as she was told without protesting, and that was enough to make Clint’s hackles raise a little. Since he’d been introduced to his charge, she’d refused to do anything without making a massive argumentative production about it. That she was this docile likely meant the attack had shaken her more than she was willing to admit. Clint sighed a little and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and silently wished Thor had been assigned the redhead instead of him. Only this time, it wasn’t so much out of aggravation with his charge, but more due to the fact that Clint had no experience whatsoever in actually comforting terrified women. He was better doing his job from a distance - surveillance, patrols, guarding various exits. Once he got up close, he was just at a loss with the personal stuff.
Nothing he could do about it now. He’d just have to wing it and hope he didn’t traumatize the Russian dancer any more than she already had been.
Somehow that sparked a thought. Russian… He thought back over the attack and the hostile who’d yelled at them in rage. The words hadn’t been any Clint knew, but they’d sounded familiar. He concentrated and was stunned at the image that came to mind with the memory of the language.
He’d been in the damned practice rooms watching Romanoff storm around in a fury that she was stuck with a bumbling American watching her every move. Clint hadn’t known her exact phrasing as she’d been cursing him out in her native tongue, but he’d gotten the gist of the sentiment.
Just as he had when Natasha’s attacker had shouted his fury in the hallway. Shouted in what Clint was becoming more and more certain had been Russian.
And Natasha must have known it.
Feeling himself almost began to vibrate with anger and trying desperately to force it down before he did something stupid like strangle his charge, Clint stalked to the bedroom door and thrust it open, coming to a halt when he saw the dancer curled up on the bed, her knees to her chest and eyes blank in a thousand-yard stare.
The look on her face almost killed his anger dead in his chest, but not enough to stop the words spilling out without him really intending it.
“You know them, don’t you? You fucking knew who they were and why they were after you and said nothing. Jesus Christ, are you out of your mind?”
Natasha hadn’t even flinched at his sudden tirade, only gripped her knees harder and rocked slightly. She pulled her empty gaze up to meet Clint’s and spoke, her voice flat.
“I learned to dance in Russia, learned to leap and spin and balance on my toes no matter what the pain. I thought that was all I would need to learn to survive, but my ballet master… he had other things to teach.” She sunk even deeper into herself in her seat on the bed, and Clint felt himself grow more sick than angry at her meaning. “He made me into a pretty little doll and gave me to men who liked such things. Men with money and power and a fondness for lovely little dancers.”
“But you got away. You came here.”
“I came here. I hoped that perhaps he would stay in Russia, that he would be content with all his other dolls. Foolish, but it was all I had to hope for.”
Clint blew out a breath and scrubbed a hand across his face. He didn’t even want to know what her life had been, or even what she’d been forced to do to make her way to the U.S. safely. But that didn’t make any of this make sense.
“So, so you escape - you move to another continent to get away from this guy. I mean you actually manage it - good for you. But what in the hell possessed you to join ABT? I mean even I know it’s one of the most well known on the planet, and I’m just a big dumb bodyguard! You had to know it would draw attention. You had to. So why?” He took a step towards her, his voice softening. “Why’d you join the troupe, Natasha? Why?”
She shifted in her seat and glanced at him sideways. “I have very specific skills. To be a dancer or to be a doll. There was no choice. And if I wanted to live on my dancing, I needed to belong to a troupe like this one, with renown and reserved tickets and magazine articles. I knew it could not last but I hoped.” She shrugged and looked away, then she spoke again, her voice even softer than his had been. “And because sometimes, there is such… joy on the stage.”
Clint didn’t need to be told that she wasn’t likely to find much joy elsewhere. He sighed, remembering a boy with a bow and the certainly that he’d found the very best thing in the world. He didn’t need to look at her to know the little girl in ballet shoes had her joy taken from her just as horribly as had that little boy.
“Fair enough.” He debated on asking another question or two, but for the life of him couldn’t figure out just what those questions would be. He didn’t really have time to ask them anyway.
A thud against the outer wall of the apartment and the sound of new raised voices warned their conversation had run out of time. How the hell had the bastard found them this quickly? He shook his head; it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting his charge out of the building safely.
“OK, we’ve got to get past them - there’s just no other way out, and the outer door won’t hold for long.” She looked as skeptical as Clint felt, but there weren’t any other options. “I’ll clear us a path and hopefully that will be the end of it. If they keep coming, or if one of them gets a lucky shot at me, you have to get yourself out of there, you got me?”
Natasha didn’t look nervous precisely, but she was clearly uncomfortable with the thought. Clint wasn’t sure if it was concern for him or for herself. Hopefully he could alleviate at least one of those concerns and maybe, just maybe give her a way to feel stronger than that bastard had intended her to be.
“If anyone gets a hand on you, you need to play to your strengths. Those legs of yours are a hell of a lot stronger than most, and you’ve got the trick of making them move only where you want them to,” he explained quickly moving out of the bedroom door with her close behind him, his eyes on his weapon as he double checked how many bullets he had in the clip. The answer was probably ‘not nearly enough,’ but he’d avoid telling her that as long as possible. “Kick as much as you can - it’ll give you distance and if you hit the right place, you can do some serious damage.”
“Which places?” she asked, her face intent on his.
“Kneecaps are a good one: if you can hit them from the side and force them inward, you can tear the hell out of the tendons. And the bad guys can’t chase you if they can’t run. Wrists, elbows, same thing. Focus your strength at any of the joints, and you can disable an attacker.” He bit his lip, wondering if he should give her one last piece of advice, and then decided what the hell. Anyone who forced her to go that far would deserve it. “If all else fails, if you can’t defend yourself any other way… Aim for the bottom of the chin with a high kick up. You could snap the fucker’s neck.”
Her eyes went wide and almost disgusted for a moment, but it was replaced quickly by calculation.
“If I have no other options, I will remember that one.”
Clint eyed her a moment and then nodded.
“Remember what I said - your job is just to get the hell out of dodge. Leave the bad guys to me. As soon as there’s a clear path out, you take it.”
“What if you’re aiming in the same direction that I have to run?” she asked, and Clint almost imaged her voice was faintly challenging.
“I don’t miss. Ever.”
Natasha gave him the same appraising look she had on the day they’d met, but this time Clint was almost sure she found something that impressed her. She nodded slowly.
“Alright. You shoot. I will run.”
“OK then.” Clint rose from his spot by the wall and moved over to stand in front of the door, pistol out and ready. Without being told, Natasha moved to the lock and waited for his signal.
Clint took a deep breath and silently gave a count down. 3…2…1…
Natasha flicked the lock and yanked back the door, and Clint opened fire before it was even completely open, bullets taking down two of their assailants before the thugs even realized their quarry was on the move. The mercs weren’t any slower on the draw than that, though - in seconds, they’d returned fire forcing Clint back down behind the door. He darted out to fire back, hitting another, but the bullets from the Russian side just kept coming.
“God damn it, there’s an acre of these guys,” Clint muttered, waiting for a beat of silence before leaning out to shoot yet another of their foes. There were still too many left. Clint cursed again, and began to lean out again, when suddenly his charge did something absolutely insane.
She ran. Bursting from behind the door and into the hall running full tilt like a sprinter off the block. Just as he’d told her to, though he distinctly remembered telling her to do so only when she had a clear path. Not in the middle of a damn fire fight!
He cursed again and darted back out to fire, covering her mad dash as best he could. He was suddenly, painfully glad it had been him assigned to her and not Thor. He could not afford to miss. Only Clint could have managed this kind of accuracy. And he was managing it - one bullet per mercenary, without a single shot wasted. Shame he just didn’t have enough bullets left for each merc.
Clint had kept count and knew the second his last bullet left the chamber. Natasha hadn’t reached the door to the street, sadly, and he just hoped like hell she’d make it. Then he didn’t have much time to hope for anything except that he’d get out of this shit hole alive. He started throwing punches and knees and elbows, anything to take his opponents down and/or keep one of those opponents between him and the various bullets still flying around. He barely had the time to risk a look to see how far the ballerina had made it, but what he saw had his jaw dropping and his movements stuttering to a halt. His distraction earned him a fist to the face, but Clint made up for it with a knee to the asshole’s crotch when the idiot turned to look too and went just as shocked. Clint couldn’t blame the merc though; it was an impressive sight.
Natasha was dancing. That was the only thing Clint could think to call it. She’d apparently taken his advice to use her ballet skills to heart, spinning down the hall, feet flashing out in breathtaking kicks and leaps far higher than someone that small should be able to manage. Several of their attackers tried to stop her, grabbing on to her wrists or hands, but she just moved with them as she might a dance partner, using their grasp as support to kick even farther and higher. Damned if it wasn’t breathtaking to watch.
Clint forced his eyes away from her graceful form and went back to his task, battering at his opponents as best he could. But Clint was only one man, and she was only a single dancer, extraordinary though she was proving to be. And there were decidedly more of the mercenaries.
Just went Clint felt almost sure they were going to go down under the weight of their opponents, a door slammed against a wall out of sight, and a familiar angry roar echoed down the hall. Bruce had entered the building.
“Thank god,” Clint muttered with a grin. “Natasha down!” he called, and he and his charge went limp and dropped to the ground just in time as his teammate opened fire into the hallway, taking down the mercs with a painful ease. A few of the attackers tried to flee from the onslaught from the slight should-be-un-intimidating figure of Bruce, but answering fire sounded from the other end of the hall as Clint’s boss and the rest of the team rounded another corner, cutting off the retreat.
The rest of the battle was pretty damned anticlimactic. Only one of the mercs tried pulling the human shield ploy, dragging Natasha from the ground with a knife to her throat. Clint had just cocked his head at his charge, and with a wicked grin, she kicked her right leg up, nailing her taller attacker right in the nose and spinning away before he could response with the knife. The merc surrendered rather quickly after that.
Figuring out what the hell had happened between the apartment and the theatre was more complicated than the firefight had been. Coulson had been halfway through a dressing down for Clint’s failure to respond via comm when Stark stormed in shouting something about amateurs who’d actually managed to hack his signal, jamming the comms in question. That mostly got Clint off the hook with his boss, though it left a lead weight in his stomach.
He’d come to the conclusion that these amateurs were anything but, and Coulson agreed with him. That Natasha’s former ballet master had managed to fund this kind of operation at all was worrying. Remembering the ballet master in question, Clint realized yet another worry.
“Tasha,” Clint called out. His charge turned, her eyebrow raised in obvious question at the nickname, but he ignored it. “Is he here? He’s not one of them, is he?” he asked, and she shook her head slowly. He turned back to Coulson with a sigh. “I was afraid of that.”
Coulson matched his frown. “It’s a setback. But if she knows who he is, we’ll get him. It’s just a matter of time.” Coulson turned away to continue directing the rest of the team in detaining the mercenary survivors, and Clint marveled a little at the fact that he was actually calmer after his boss’s announcement. Simple, straight to the point. ‘We’ll get him.’ It was good to hear.
The drive back to the theatre was just as silent as the drive to the safe house had been, if somewhat less hostile and far safer with the rest of his team flanking Clint’s vehicle. They were met at the door by some of the other principals and the manager. Natasha was all but tackled by Jane Foster, something that clearly bemused her and amused the hell out of Clint.
Who knew the redhead had apparently had a friend in the troupe who’d been worried about her? Clearly Natasha hadn’t.
Clint wished he could say that the ending of the story was as happy as Jane had been to pounce on her unharmed ‘friend,’ but he knew better.
Only a few hours later, he and Tasha were called into the ballet manager’s office to find Coulson waiting along with Coulson’s boss. Director Fury had founded S.H.I.E.L.D., and he was just as intimidating now as he had been the day Coulson brought Clint in, claiming the washed up archer would be an asset to their security team.
‘Course that day had gone better than Clint had ever expected, so maybe Fury’s presence wasn’t the death knell he was afraid of.
Natasha wasn’t as reassured by the sight of the tall dark director as Clint was, though he figured he’d be the only one in the room who could read her anxiety from her still form. After a long silent moment, Fury spoke, his attention focused on the Russian dancer.
“Is it over?” he asked, and Natasha didn’t even pretend she didn’t know what he meant.
“No. He will keep coming. He had never had a doll escape him before, and he always said that none ever would.” She kept her voice passive, but Clint saw her hands were shaking slightly. He resisted the urge to lean against her shoulder in support, knowing Fury would be watching Clint, too, for all that his eye seemed focused on the dancer.
“That’s what I thought. He’ll be dealt with eventually, just so you know. I’ve got enough connections to make sure that happens.” Fury was casual about dropping that bit of information, but clearly to Natasha it was practically a bombshell. Clint wondered if she’d ever expected to hear someone dismiss her abuser so easily. He’d kept her in thrall of his ‘power’ for so long, Fury’s certainty that the man would be taken down had to come as a shock. Fury went on, seemingly oblivious to the woman’s shock. “In the mean time though, I think you know the dancing here is out of the question.”
Natasha nodded slowly, and Clint was somewhat glad to see her manager mouthing a strained apology from behind Fury. Looked like there was another member of the troupe who’d be sad to see Tasha go.
“So, considering you’re officially unemployed,” Coulson broke in, suddenly, his bland voice actually startling Clint who’d been expecting Fury again, “how would you like to consider a job offer?”
Both Clint and Natasha’s jaws dropped at that. Even with his own completely off-the-wall recruitment, Clint wouldn’t have guessed this was coming. Tasha opened her mouth as it to speak and then closed it again, clearly not knowing what to say. Fury grinned wolfishly at her.
“Look girl, in case you hadn’t noticed, Coulson has a gift for recognizing potential in extraordinary individuals. As do I. I gotta say, that video of you dancing down the hallway was one of the most impressive demonstrations of a talented amateur at work that I’ve seen in years.”
Tasha frowned a little, clearly miffed at being called an ‘amateur’ anything, and Clint coughed covering up a laugh that might otherwise have gone a little hysterical. From the way damn near everyone in the room glared at him, he didn’t cover it up all that well. Fury shook his head, the side of his mouth twitching.
“As I was saying, Miss Romanoff. We could use someone like you: strong, multi-lingual, graceful, and lovely enough that most will underestimate you. What do you say?”
For the first time since Clint had met her, Tasha seemed to hesitate, and he couldn’t help speaking.
“It’s a third choice, Tasha, another way to use those skills of yours.”
Her eyes shot up and she pinned him in place with another of those assessing looks, then, slowly, she nodded.
“Alright,” she said softly. “You shoot. I will dance.”
Clint grinned back, ignoring the congratulations and welcomes from both of his bosses. Looked like he had a partner now, and damned if she wasn’t going to be enjoyable as hell to watch.