title → little red dress
fandom → the avengers
rating → pg
warnings → none
charectors → natasha romanoff, clint barton
pairings → natasha/clint
summary → every time they went on a mission that required some form of fancy dress-up, natasha romanoff always wore her little red dress. the funny thing was, she never really knew why.

Every time they went on a mission that required some form of fancy dress-up, Natasha Romanoff always wore her little red dress. The funny thing was, she never really knew why. Heaven knows it wasn't comfortable to wear. Short and tight, sticking to her in all the wrong places and sticking out in all the right. Silly little straps barely holding the thing up and she could barely breathe the in the thing, let alone do anything else. She didn't even know why she bought it really. She'd been sitting in a chair somewhere, absently flipping through some magazine filled with pictures of plastic people in tiny, little dresses, putting and strutting this way and that. And all she was doing was waiting to snap someone's neck… Natasha had liked the little black ones the best, simple and dark. Perfect for breaking necks. But everyone else seemed to like the red ones. At least Clint had.

"I dunno, I kinda like red." He'd said, shrugging and quickly changing the subject to anything except red dresses. She hadn't really known what to make of his reaction, but had filled them away for later. And then she'd gone shopping. Apparently it's what ordinary people did every day, at least that's what they told her. Needing (or was it longing?) to be normal, Natasha had gone shopping. Looking fully normal, normally looking at a normal dress shop. And normally, heavily armed. The first store she went into, did nothing but annoy the Hell out of her. Woman who talked non-stop about shiny vampires and who kissed who, shop assistants who didn't stop asking her if she needed anything than looking at her like she had suddenly sprung a second head when she said no. The second and third were the same and it wasn't till the fourth that she saw it. Bright red, small and oh so not under the radar. She held it up, frowning as she turned it around and around and around in the air. She honestly had no idea what to make of it, or what exactly was wrong with people to willingly put themselves through so much pain without a rather large gun to their heads. And for what? But she bought it anyway. She took it home and the first thing she did was hide it, somewhere back in the never-ending depths of her cupboard. Why? Well, she was never really gonna wear it anyway, was she? But then one mission, Natasha put it on, out of desperation or by mistake she didn't really know. The mission had gone as expected, no hitches. The only thing that worried her was Clint. He'd been quiet the whole time, saying the right things at the right times, but never really saying anything to her, not like he used to. The next time Natasha wore her little red dress, he was the same, quiet and seemingly taken to avoiding her more than usual. And she swore someone was watching her from behind, but when she turned around it was only Clint, looking the other way. When she asked him about it, he'd just shrugged.

"It's just taking a while to get used to, that's all."

"What is?"

"You," He's stammered, "That- not wearing black, you not wearing black. It's just a bit… different, that's all."

"Is that… bad?"

"No, no. Not bad. Just… different."

"You said you liked="

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing never mind." The next time she wore her little red dress, Clint had been his normal self. He must have gotten used to it after all… Then one mission, he said something. Something simple, not out of the ordinary but it made Natasha stop.

"You look good in red." Five words, not even a whole sentence, not a proper one anyway. Just five words over the mike, than radio silence. But it had been enough. So every time they went on a mission that required some form of fancy dress-up, Natasha Romanoff always wore her little red dress. The funny thing was, she never really knew why. But she had a pretty good idea.