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aa_natasha 8/15/2012
Natasha is waiting for him in the car when he appears, and it's already humming with that familiar, well-maintained purr.
Leather creaks where Clint slides into the car, his gaze catching on the rear-view mirror with a paranoid check as he catches his seat belt and pulls it across himself. "Did you sweep for bugs already?" he questions, already an assumption to the words since the car idles, ready. It makes for good filler conversation, however, for enough room to be put between them and the building.
Natasha turns her head slightly to level a look on Clint, somewhere between amused and insulted. She shifts the car into gear as soon as his door clicks shut, and the engine warms to a roar as she swings it out of the garage far too fast. It's not until they're waiting in traffic that she turns to look at Clint to quietly prompt, "Well?"
"She could be an asset, or she could be a liability. We won't know until we're in there, though," Clint summarizes simply, his eyes fixing back on hers with a slight shrug of helplessness. "Going to get her as much firearms training as we can before we go."
"Among other things," Natasha says, breathing slowly outward through her nostrils. There's a beat of silence before she admits, "She can get in places I couldn't dream of. But she has no idea what she's doing. It's a recipe for disaster."
Clint's brows lift slightly, though he seems to relax slowly into his seat as Natasha drives. He says dryly, "No more than any of the rest of them. That's why we'll be there."
Natasha snorts and glances toward him again, meeting Clint's gaze for a moment before she turns forward to focus on traffic. A light changes; the car surges forward with the crowd. She lingers silent.
"We can always drop her off in Monico," Clint offers.
Natasha chokes out a short laugh at that, then dips her head a bit and shakes it. "I think we're stuck with her," she says forlornly. After a beat she allows, "Might even turn out okay. I don't know."
"Better her than bringing Thor back with us," confirms Clint with a hint of a quirked brow, glancing over at Natasha as he says it.
"He's lucky I can't kill him," Natasha answers in a low-voiced growl.
Clint snorts agreement softly, rolling down the window to readjust that rear-view mirror with a spark of paranoia before he answers, "They're civilians, Tasha. Easy to forget until they do something like that."
"You're always so damned reasonable," Natasha complains. A sideways glance watches his adjustment before she sighs again and takes them around a corner with a gratuitous squeal of tires.
"No. Sometimes I let you drive," Clint counters with a wince for that squealing, but his lips quirk after into a crooked smile as he rolls his window up and looks back to Natasha. "Short of shoving them into hours of lectures until they /get/ it, we need to figure out some way to keep tabs on them, obviously."
"It's not /tabs/ I'm worried about," Natasha answers, twisting through the alley and onto a one-way street. "I've got tabs covered. We've /had/ tabs covered. But this haring off, no thought for consequences, no--" She shakes her head, then admits quietly, "I'm not sure I trust them at my back. And that's dangerous."
"You have me." The statement comes with too long a silence after, a seriousness that lingers on the words before Clint is moving on to add, "Think of it like working with a new agent. They take a while to get their feet well and truly under them and to know what they're doing."
Natasha replies with similar silence, too long, and it stretches between them with a weight that's far from comfortable. She spots an opening in traffic and the car whines in protest as she shoots it forward at speeds ridiculous for New York's crowded streets.
Clint reaches and clasps fingers against the handle above his seat, curving tightly as his gaze snaps to the street in front of him. "Next time, it is my turn to drive," he says, breaking up that silence.
Natasha's lips quirk with amusement, but she doesn't answer. There's another turn, and then another, and then she jerks the car abruptly into an empty alley with the Harbor a dark glint in the distance beyond its mouth. She leaves the car running but edges it into park, and when she turns to face Clint, it's full-on. "Are you ready for this?" she asks, soft.
"Wouldn't have volunteered if I weren't, Romanov," Clint replies, assurance sliding along the response even where his jaw tightens in a brief twitch. He meets her gaze with a slow exhale of breath to mimic her earlier one, finally shaking his head. "You don't need to worry about me at your back."
"Clint," Natasha says, and then falls silent for a moment, letting his name hang between them. Eventually she adds, "It's okay if you're not."
His fingers trace thoughtfully along the bit of leather that keeps his gun within its holster, thumbing at the snap button for a moment before his hand falls away with a tight nod. Clint answers, too over-confident that it strains in an uncomfortable way, "I'm ready for /this/. We've played this cover before, and Janet'll be doing the brunt of the infiltration."
Natasha watches him for a moment longer before she gives him a brief, accepting nod. "Okay," she says, trust wide open in her voice. Still, she studies him in the shadows of the dim-lit alley.
"Training trumps everything, doesn't it?" Clint teases against that study, a breath pushed out before he is efficientally pushing that button undone, pulling his gun from the holster to lay on the console between them in a familiar gesture of trust. "If Loki pokes his head out, Tasha..."
"He won't get to you without going straight through me," Natasha answers, quick and low as she catches his eyes. "And you know how I feel about men going through me."
"Natasha," Clint says carefully, enunciating her full name instead of his lazy nickname of it, his lips twitching inevitably for all that the humor does not reach his gaze. "If he does, you put a bullet in my head. Don't risk doing something stupid again and putting yourself in danger."
Natasha's brows slide upward, and for several seconds she gives Clint a very patient look that says quiet clearly, 'You're being stupid.' She follows it with something fast-paced in Russian before she shakes her head and lifts one hand with fingers that seek his temple. "I wasn't in danger," she says. "And I'll shoot you if I have to."
His hand lifts to catch hers, but fingers only flatten against her hand rather than pulling away from the gesture. He answers, slowly, "That's all a man wants to hear." His lips quirk into a tight smile, briefly.
Natasha's eyes light with a flash of a smile. "You'd do the same for me."
"You sure about that? Because all previous signs point to--," Clint says with a curve of his brow, letting the words and the implied history hang between them as humor works its way back into deep brown eyes. He pulls away only to gather his gun and shove it back into the holster, glancing around them in a quick check of their position.
Natasha snorts and drops her hand into her lap as she turns forward, gaze directed at the water beyond the alley's end. "Yeah, well. You know me better now."
"If you think that'd make me more willing to put an arrow through you, Tasha, you'd be wrong." The words are said simply, his gaze joining her to watch the harbor as Clint lapses into silence.
Natasha is silent, her expression largely lost in the alley's shadows. Her hands come up to either side of the wheel, ten and two, but she doesn't make any move to shift the car back into gear just yet.
The settle of silence between them doesn't seem to disturb Clint all that much, instead he watches the harbor and its security patrol with the patience and focus of a sniper. If he notices the change of Natasha's posture, he doesn't encourage her to head back, yet.
Natasha and Clint are accustomed to silences. Each has its own particular flavor. Some are steady and patient, the cool moments that stretch out during a job. Some are easy and warm with comfort. A very few are awkward, uneasy, unsettled. This one is none of those. It's hesitant and considering and it breaks when Natasha asks without turning toward him, "How are you? Really?"
"Honestly, I still don't feel--myself. All of the looks, all of the handling like I may break, I get it, but it's not me," Clint answers quietly, his gaze jumping from the harbor to Natasha and then back again in the space of a second. "It's better when I'm not /there/. Around everyone who knows."
Natasha turns her head slightly, catching his profile. "I know," she points out.
There is a slow exhale, a slight wince of Clint's steady features as he says, "Yeah." Just that, the single word of acknowledgment for every bit of her history that he does know.
Natasha gives Clint a very slight smile, but the look in her eyes is sad as she turns away again. "You might not ever feel like yourself," she says into the darkness. "Maybe this is what you feel like, now."
"God, I hope not," Clint groans quietly, his fingers dragging briefly through short cropped hair before falling uselessly into his lap. "I don't like this Clint, Tasha."
"You still hit hard," Natasha says. Her fingers are still on the steering wheel. "You still shoot straight." She turns her head to look at him again. There is a beat of silence, something that goes unsaid, before she finishes quietly, "You're you. I'd know if you weren't."
"Yeah," Clint agrees slowly, meeting her gaze just as carefully as his fingers flex at something, a quick reflex in the place of whatever impulse. "If only everyone else knew that."
"They will," Natasha says. "Give them time."
"That's what the headshrinkers say," he tells her with a hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth.
"You know me," Natasha answers, dry. "Better than any psychologist."
Clint actually agrees with some seriousness, a hint of truth to his words where he says, "You and your Russian vodka."
"You need a drink," Natasha says, finally reaching to shift the car into gear, "you give me a shout."
"After this mission," Clint suggests, his gaze sliding over towards Natasha even as he offers up a smile.
"Presuming we're alive," Natasha mutters, more a good-natured complaint for the general situation than actual doubt. With a screech of tires, the car shoots out toward the water, then swerves swiftly onto a side street headed for home.
Natasha is waiting for him in the car when he appears, and it's already humming with that familiar, well-maintained purr.
Leather creaks where Clint slides into the car, his gaze catching on the rear-view mirror with a paranoid check as he catches his seat belt and pulls it across himself. "Did you sweep for bugs already?" he questions, already an assumption to the words since the car idles, ready. It makes for good filler conversation, however, for enough room to be put between them and the building.
Natasha turns her head slightly to level a look on Clint, somewhere between amused and insulted. She shifts the car into gear as soon as his door clicks shut, and the engine warms to a roar as she swings it out of the garage far too fast. It's not until they're waiting in traffic that she turns to look at Clint to quietly prompt, "Well?"
"She could be an asset, or she could be a liability. We won't know until we're in there, though," Clint summarizes simply, his eyes fixing back on hers with a slight shrug of helplessness. "Going to get her as much firearms training as we can before we go."
"Among other things," Natasha says, breathing slowly outward through her nostrils. There's a beat of silence before she admits, "She can get in places I couldn't dream of. But she has no idea what she's doing. It's a recipe for disaster."
Clint's brows lift slightly, though he seems to relax slowly into his seat as Natasha drives. He says dryly, "No more than any of the rest of them. That's why we'll be there."
Natasha snorts and glances toward him again, meeting Clint's gaze for a moment before she turns forward to focus on traffic. A light changes; the car surges forward with the crowd. She lingers silent.
"We can always drop her off in Monico," Clint offers.
Natasha chokes out a short laugh at that, then dips her head a bit and shakes it. "I think we're stuck with her," she says forlornly. After a beat she allows, "Might even turn out okay. I don't know."
"Better her than bringing Thor back with us," confirms Clint with a hint of a quirked brow, glancing over at Natasha as he says it.
"He's lucky I can't kill him," Natasha answers in a low-voiced growl.
Clint snorts agreement softly, rolling down the window to readjust that rear-view mirror with a spark of paranoia before he answers, "They're civilians, Tasha. Easy to forget until they do something like that."
"You're always so damned reasonable," Natasha complains. A sideways glance watches his adjustment before she sighs again and takes them around a corner with a gratuitous squeal of tires.
"No. Sometimes I let you drive," Clint counters with a wince for that squealing, but his lips quirk after into a crooked smile as he rolls his window up and looks back to Natasha. "Short of shoving them into hours of lectures until they /get/ it, we need to figure out some way to keep tabs on them, obviously."
"It's not /tabs/ I'm worried about," Natasha answers, twisting through the alley and onto a one-way street. "I've got tabs covered. We've /had/ tabs covered. But this haring off, no thought for consequences, no--" She shakes her head, then admits quietly, "I'm not sure I trust them at my back. And that's dangerous."
"You have me." The statement comes with too long a silence after, a seriousness that lingers on the words before Clint is moving on to add, "Think of it like working with a new agent. They take a while to get their feet well and truly under them and to know what they're doing."
Natasha replies with similar silence, too long, and it stretches between them with a weight that's far from comfortable. She spots an opening in traffic and the car whines in protest as she shoots it forward at speeds ridiculous for New York's crowded streets.
Clint reaches and clasps fingers against the handle above his seat, curving tightly as his gaze snaps to the street in front of him. "Next time, it is my turn to drive," he says, breaking up that silence.
Natasha's lips quirk with amusement, but she doesn't answer. There's another turn, and then another, and then she jerks the car abruptly into an empty alley with the Harbor a dark glint in the distance beyond its mouth. She leaves the car running but edges it into park, and when she turns to face Clint, it's full-on. "Are you ready for this?" she asks, soft.
"Wouldn't have volunteered if I weren't, Romanov," Clint replies, assurance sliding along the response even where his jaw tightens in a brief twitch. He meets her gaze with a slow exhale of breath to mimic her earlier one, finally shaking his head. "You don't need to worry about me at your back."
"Clint," Natasha says, and then falls silent for a moment, letting his name hang between them. Eventually she adds, "It's okay if you're not."
His fingers trace thoughtfully along the bit of leather that keeps his gun within its holster, thumbing at the snap button for a moment before his hand falls away with a tight nod. Clint answers, too over-confident that it strains in an uncomfortable way, "I'm ready for /this/. We've played this cover before, and Janet'll be doing the brunt of the infiltration."
Natasha watches him for a moment longer before she gives him a brief, accepting nod. "Okay," she says, trust wide open in her voice. Still, she studies him in the shadows of the dim-lit alley.
"Training trumps everything, doesn't it?" Clint teases against that study, a breath pushed out before he is efficientally pushing that button undone, pulling his gun from the holster to lay on the console between them in a familiar gesture of trust. "If Loki pokes his head out, Tasha..."
"He won't get to you without going straight through me," Natasha answers, quick and low as she catches his eyes. "And you know how I feel about men going through me."
"Natasha," Clint says carefully, enunciating her full name instead of his lazy nickname of it, his lips twitching inevitably for all that the humor does not reach his gaze. "If he does, you put a bullet in my head. Don't risk doing something stupid again and putting yourself in danger."
Natasha's brows slide upward, and for several seconds she gives Clint a very patient look that says quiet clearly, 'You're being stupid.' She follows it with something fast-paced in Russian before she shakes her head and lifts one hand with fingers that seek his temple. "I wasn't in danger," she says. "And I'll shoot you if I have to."
His hand lifts to catch hers, but fingers only flatten against her hand rather than pulling away from the gesture. He answers, slowly, "That's all a man wants to hear." His lips quirk into a tight smile, briefly.
Natasha's eyes light with a flash of a smile. "You'd do the same for me."
"You sure about that? Because all previous signs point to--," Clint says with a curve of his brow, letting the words and the implied history hang between them as humor works its way back into deep brown eyes. He pulls away only to gather his gun and shove it back into the holster, glancing around them in a quick check of their position.
Natasha snorts and drops her hand into her lap as she turns forward, gaze directed at the water beyond the alley's end. "Yeah, well. You know me better now."
"If you think that'd make me more willing to put an arrow through you, Tasha, you'd be wrong." The words are said simply, his gaze joining her to watch the harbor as Clint lapses into silence.
Natasha is silent, her expression largely lost in the alley's shadows. Her hands come up to either side of the wheel, ten and two, but she doesn't make any move to shift the car back into gear just yet.
The settle of silence between them doesn't seem to disturb Clint all that much, instead he watches the harbor and its security patrol with the patience and focus of a sniper. If he notices the change of Natasha's posture, he doesn't encourage her to head back, yet.
Natasha and Clint are accustomed to silences. Each has its own particular flavor. Some are steady and patient, the cool moments that stretch out during a job. Some are easy and warm with comfort. A very few are awkward, uneasy, unsettled. This one is none of those. It's hesitant and considering and it breaks when Natasha asks without turning toward him, "How are you? Really?"
"Honestly, I still don't feel--myself. All of the looks, all of the handling like I may break, I get it, but it's not me," Clint answers quietly, his gaze jumping from the harbor to Natasha and then back again in the space of a second. "It's better when I'm not /there/. Around everyone who knows."
Natasha turns her head slightly, catching his profile. "I know," she points out.
There is a slow exhale, a slight wince of Clint's steady features as he says, "Yeah." Just that, the single word of acknowledgment for every bit of her history that he does know.
Natasha gives Clint a very slight smile, but the look in her eyes is sad as she turns away again. "You might not ever feel like yourself," she says into the darkness. "Maybe this is what you feel like, now."
"God, I hope not," Clint groans quietly, his fingers dragging briefly through short cropped hair before falling uselessly into his lap. "I don't like this Clint, Tasha."
"You still hit hard," Natasha says. Her fingers are still on the steering wheel. "You still shoot straight." She turns her head to look at him again. There is a beat of silence, something that goes unsaid, before she finishes quietly, "You're you. I'd know if you weren't."
"Yeah," Clint agrees slowly, meeting her gaze just as carefully as his fingers flex at something, a quick reflex in the place of whatever impulse. "If only everyone else knew that."
"They will," Natasha says. "Give them time."
"That's what the headshrinkers say," he tells her with a hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth.
"You know me," Natasha answers, dry. "Better than any psychologist."
Clint actually agrees with some seriousness, a hint of truth to his words where he says, "You and your Russian vodka."
"You need a drink," Natasha says, finally reaching to shift the car into gear, "you give me a shout."
"After this mission," Clint suggests, his gaze sliding over towards Natasha even as he offers up a smile.
"Presuming we're alive," Natasha mutters, more a good-natured complaint for the general situation than actual doubt. With a screech of tires, the car shoots out toward the water, then swerves swiftly onto a side street headed for home.