A/N:
This is one half of the story; it's been a project I've worked on alongside Fault for months now, and I'm very happy to share it with you. This is my addition to the waves of work that concerns Clint and Natasha before The Avengers, and I hope you enjoy a slightly unorthodox spin on the tale.
The title might take some knowledge of foreign languages. ;)
Menta(l)
Mint.
Odd, she muses, and Natasha inhales again as she gathers the pieces for an image. She tries for something romantic, someone with arms around her; something to cling to when she's out amidst the leaves, scolding herself for something as ridiculous as the notion of love. But she pushes those thoughts out of her mind, and she doesn't think of that; Not yet.
The pounding in her head doesn't surprise her, though the faintest hint of vodka on her lips tells of someone who'd spoiled her with more than one the night before. It brings a smile, but she doesn't open her eyes yet – she'd rather feign sleep, keeping her brow smoothed out, laying perfectly still. Instead, she waits for the man on the other side to shift, for him to reach out and wake her.
Today, he smells like mint.
She isn't sure if they're different, all calloused hands on her arm – but some shake her awake, calling her a name that isn't even hers. Some run their fingers down, purring their greetings in her ear, and she hates that – but they're the same, aren't they? They're all desperate as she is, and they roll her over and kiss at her neck, asking her for her real name, asking for a number.
It's always refused with a coy smile, a brief kiss to the lips; It's enough to bring them back when their dreams have haunted them with red hair, gleaming green eyes, and the pale expanse of her skin; Enough to hand her a few crumpled bills when they see her again, enough to tide her over another day.
She's gotten lucky in her craft, she supposes, when she walks past the women on the street. The pallor as they're leaned against the wall is something familiar, and Natasha remembers her arms propped up in the windows of cars, smirking at shaded faces barely lit in the night. It's different now, and she leaves it behind in favour of numbers slipped into coat pockets; smiles as she passes them in a bar, seating herself primly.
She lets them buy her a drink, and she smiles at them as she whispers a price in their ear. It hardly takes coaxing, stroking down their jaws, pressing fond lips to corner of mouths, before she finds herself with with the money in hand, fingers grasping at a new set of sheets for purchase as she gasps out.
On occasion, she'll wake with a silence in her mind – little clue how she'd come to be there, but she doesn't care for days like those. The bed is warm and she's alive – she knows how to survive, and she has no reason to complain just yet. The man beside her sleeps on, the faintest trace of mint, and she lays still. He breathes deep, silent, and she's hardly about to interrupt.
Finally, however, he wakes – a shift as he tugs at the blankets, getting his bearings back, and she waits. He must have been drunk, she notes quietly – because he takes far too long, and she can hear him moving around the room. Rustling for a painkiller, filling a glass of water.
It's a good five, maybe seven minutes, when he finally sits beside her sleeping form on the bed. He hesitates to touch her; She can feel his hand hover near her skin for a moment, and she almost smiles as he pulls away from her again.
That's new, she makes note. It's almost like he cares – it must be late morning, and he's got every right to throw her out, doesn't he? And still, he opts not to, instead pulling the blankets around her. More rustle, and she creases her brow slightly. She may as well seem alive, at least, allowing him closer to her.
Instead, there's a silence hanging in the air for another thirty seconds before he mutters to himself. He picks things off the floor, curses escaping his lips; still, he doesn't touch her. It's another harried sigh, the slamming of a door –
And then nothing.
She waits. She hardly breathes – this isn't how it's like. They escort her out, they kiss her hand, or they wipe at their lips and pretend for their sake it hadn't happened at all – but he hasn't. He's gone.
Her eyes only flicker open after a pause, and she slowly props herself up on an elbow; Looking around, squinting at the bloody light from the curtains, and no one in sight. Natasha sits up eventually, when she's absolutely sure, and chooses to let the sheets pool at her waist – it isn't like there's a need for decency, without him. But why had he gone?
When the cold of the room finally settles into her skin, she shifts again to pick her clothes off the ground. Stockings, carefully rolled back up her legs, and her heels slid onto her feet. She'd opted for shorts, the night before, and the tank top follows.
Natasha looks up into the mirror, checking the smudge of her makeup, when she sees it. A single post-it, blue, strangely out of place, and she pulls it off the glass with careful fingers – turning it in her hands, the cash taped callously under it. The hotel's stationery, something unfamiliar still, but it's a gesture she can appreciate.
She tucks the money into her pocket, a routine – subconscious, the same motion she'd been practicing for months now. Oddly enough, she pockets the post-it, too. Sentiment, she says, scolding herself quietly, but she shakes her head and makes for the door.
If she hasn't anything else, she's allowed sentiment.
It's painfully easy when she's stepping through white streets again, glancing at the passers-by. Autumn hadn't been kind, and Winter harsh – and harsher still, now, as the snow insists on falling. She curses it, a mutter of Russian slipping past her lips, and she digs her hands further into her pockets.
Her fingers twist around the paper she's grasped in her fingers, a familiar little blue sheet that's hardly sticky – worn by now, faded, but it's tangible. A comfort; An assurance that she'd been taken care of, once, and she can hardly fault any who crave her company – or any company. Anyone at all, they'd say, and she'd be on the list.
Of course, Winter brings a different sort of client, and she finds herself further away from the city at night – tapping her knuckles on mahogany doors, and greeting them with shy smiles. It's a welcome repose from draping herself on the bar, at least, and she likes this. It's systematic, almost, and she might just convince herself that it's cleaner than the last job.
The little square, however, she's kept. Faceless, empty, but it's something she remembers. Natasha smiles almost ruefully at the idea – amidst the nights she'd had since then, she remembers a touch not given, words not quite said. Tonight, she almost considers throwing it away – the blue square that plagues her, a wrinkled sheet that amounts to nothing.
She refuses to romanticise the snow, and she hardly mentions how she'd run away from her house, probably left to crumble into ashes. How, when they'd shown up at her door, she'd run as far as she could; how she'd wound herself up at the first bar she'd stumbled across.
Natasha doesn't mention how she'd kissed the man who approached her, the man near thirty, barely eighteen herself; she doesn't say how they'd wound up in the inn's only bed. It's hazy enough that she hardly remembers how he'd convinced her to come with him.
And she doesn't say how she'd wound up here.
There's no need to drag the jobs out in the Winter, she's always said. It's far more convenient; there isn't a need for whispered affections or kisses to her lips, not when she'd already won them over – she'd rather be pressed against the wall like she is, and she'd rather walk out in the morning with the cash in hand.
She can't be ashamed, not when her back falls to the mattress, not when it pays the rent. She doesn't have time to think about that, not as she spreads her legs, not when it's what'll pay for breakfast. She won't regret it, not when he finally pushes into her, not while it keeps her alive.
She seats herself when the carols start up again, the drunken shouts of 'Silent Night' carrying through the window. The irony isn't lost, and she snorts as she takes another long drag of a cigarette; Smoke passing through her lips, she lets out another sigh, and she leans back out.
Tonight, she waits for him. It's a gift she's bothered to give herself, a rest from the cold of December.
She arranges the skirts of her dress, and she sighs. The waiting had hardly ever appealed to her, and it's no exception now as she looks out into the snow again – but, she supposes, he still has a few minutes. He isn't yet late.
Natasha picks her heels off the ground, and she slips them on with some amusement. They're the first thing to leave her, she finds, and she hardly sees a point – but she knows how to make an effort. She knows how to play.
They say she's young still – that she'll grow tired of the game, that it'll become chore before she knows it. She supposes absently that they've grown bitter with the treatment, and she's careful to keep her guard up. No borders crossed, nothing that she can't suppress – she likes it like this. It's a silent sort of power, no matter what they think of her, and she relishes it.
Finally, the knock comes, and she takes a deep breath. She opens the door with a smile, leaning her head on the frame, and she takes his appearance in. Nothing short of the standard, she supposes, the well-dressed gentleman; a knot tied neatly at his throat, and she can't help but smirk at the glasses.
As if the tinted lenses do anything to hide him, as if they'll help her forget his face a tad faster. She notices that – they believe in their own importance, like she'll remember. They believe they're her only. She curves her lips into a playful smile, now, and she knows that she's an actress of the highest caliber.
"Natalya," she says, extending a hand, and she lies as smoothly as she always has. "Charles, was it?"
He smiles, and he looks her over. Appreciative, Natasha's sure, and she lets him – crossing her ankles, the hem riding a little higher than it has to. "Yeah. Charles – think you were expecting me," he offers finally, and she chuckles as she opens the door to let him in.
"Right on time, too," she agrees, and she leads him with a gentle tug of his hand. He's nervous, somehow, and Natasha finds it almost endearing – pulling him in close, holding herself to him. She trails gentle, coaxing fingers up his cheek, moving to remove the glasses.
"Done this before?"
He smirks at that, and he presses her back just a bit. "Absolutely," he says, but he tugs away from her hand. Natasha doesn't let the confusion touch her face, but she raises a brow at him. A kink, perhaps, of sorts? "Do this often?"
The sense of humour is unexpected, and she allows a small chuckle to escape. "What, Christmas?" she returns, keeping her voice as light as she can. "Once a year. Not terribly fond."
Charles chuckles, and she allows a smile to spread on her lips. It isn't clean, though, isn't at all convenient, not with the way he shifts his hands in his lap. "'Course you're not. Spend most of them drinking, myself – join me?"
The question throws her. It's familiar, yes, but she rarely hears it outside of the warmth a bar would provide. They would be slightly drunk as they were, and they would hold a cocktail for her – which she'd accept with a smile, toasting them. But this is different. "Pardon?"
"A drink," he repeats for her, and he reaches for his bag. "Figure you could use one."
Natasha takes a step forward, and she bends to look into his eyes – her hand resting between his legs, inches away from what he must have come for. "And if I decline?" She purrs low in her throat, trying to initiate, taking her lead back.
Charles – he smirks, and he looks back at her with confidence. "I drink on my own," he says simply, and leans forward for a brief kiss. Firm, unromantic, and Natasha isn't even sure that he's paying her for a night to fall on the sheets. She isn't sure she minds, really, and she pulls away.
"Not in this weather," she says, a pause of silence broken by the sound of her heels on the floor – she pulls her chair over, careful, and she seats herself opposite him. "Too cold out. No one worth your time."
Charles doesn't respond to that, and he smirks as he reaches over to pick his bag off the floor. "And that's why I have you," he says, feigning dismissal, pulling a bottle into his lap. It's untouched, and she raises a brow at it – a gift, not something they tended to give her. Wines, champagnes – she'd seen those, but she didn't care for them.
This, however, she knows. With another quirk of her lips, she goes to fetch a glass.
He pours her a drink, first. She sits back in her chair, wooden and old, and she hardly cares. It's Christmas, and he isn't pawing her just yet – he's keeping his hands in his lap, pushing those glasses up on occasion, and he holds the glass up to toast her. She eventually shuts the window when the carols get louder still, and she sighs at the quiet.
He pours again before a half-hour's properly passed. Charles seems to smile a bit wider, and he chuckles as he nudges – she keeps her legs crossed and he doesn't ask her to spread them wider, not like she'd expected to have done by this point. They talk about the weather, snowing and icy and much too cold to be out.
There's something hauntingly familiar in the way he holds his hands. She forgets, though, as he tells another one of his jokes – she laughs, but he isn't as funny as he thinks he is. He fills another.
And another.
And another.
She's warm when she finally opens her eyes, vaguely aware of an arm wrapped loose around her shoulders, and she sighs out. It's comfortable, and it's not unwelcome in the chill that waits for her today – in fact, she'd rather not move.
Natasha doesn't let herself shift, not for a while. It's not long before she's crossed to the bathroom, however, forced to her knees as her alcohol comes back up. Her head is throbbing as she gropes for the edge of the sink, using it as support, pushing her hair back with a quiet groan escaping her. She prays she hasn't woken him – it wouldn't do, not like this, losing her composure.
She chides herself with that, and she wipes at her mouth as she seeks a pill to soothe the ache. Her fingers move with practice, popping it into her mouth – swallowing it dry, usually to remedy the soreness they'd leave with her, but this is different. She hardly hurts at all, she barely manages to think, when her head begins to clear. With that, she deems herself presentable – sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed, rubbing at her face.
The first thing to catch her eyes are the shades, and she smiles a bit as she picks them up, turning them in her hands. She thinks that she remembers the faintest trace of her fingers on his cheek, down the stubble, finally pulling the tinted glass off so she could see him better – but it hardly matters to her now.
When it becomes apparent she isn't going back to sleep, she pushes herself back up on her feet. Fishing the nearest piece of clothing off the ground, she pulls it on, standing in front of the mirror to inspect any bruising. The glasses are still closed in her hand, but she doesn't set them down yet.
Instead, however, a little square stuck to the mirror catches her attention. Blue, three inches by three, and she frowns at it – a post-it pasted over her fee, neatly folded. Natasha glances back at him with a frown, and she slowly peels it off the glass.
She turns it in her hands, and she keeps her brow creased. She'd had many ideas since he'd left her months ago – and the least of which was that he'd come to her again. It could have been someone else, she reasons, and she shakes her head before tucking the money away in a drawer. Someone – anyone could carry a little sheet like this.
Well.
It's still a shame, she thinks after a beat, that she hadn't laid a little longer. Perhaps he would've pulled blankets up her shoulders, and maybe he'd have held her. Her lips quirk into a wry smile as she pads to the kitchen, pulling out a mug, getting a coffee in order – she isn't a little girl anymore, and she doesn't believe in love. Love had been for the child that she'd left knee-deep in the Russian snow.
She takes a long sip and inhales deeply, letting out a contented sigh. It takes the edge off, somehow, and she rolls her head out. It'd always been calming, and she pushes thoughts of his identity out. Charles – she'd just have to ask the girls who'd lead him to her for a name, for a face.
"Morning," a hoarse voice greets behind her, and she smirks. So he'd woken when she moved, she supposes, and he'd come to find her. How sweet.
"Morning," she returns, straightening her back out. "Good sleep?"
Natasha turns to the side, and she peers out the window, down to the street. No one's about just yet, and she sighs as she props a hand up on her hip, picking her coffee up again. Charles lets out a low chuckle, and he steps into the kitchen with her. "Yeah. Hope you're not roughed up."
She almost snorts – like she's anything fragile, and he grossly underestimates her. "I'm not delicate," she says dryly, taking another sip.
"Suppose not," he chuckles. There's a hint of a hiss of pain, and then – "Have you got any ice?"
She nods after a beat, crouching beside the box to dig around for ice. "Knocked your head, maybe?" She says conversationally, turning back. No, not really – she knows better, the headache after that much alcohol. "You could have just asked for an aspirin–"
The word dies on her lips, and she stares. Immediately, her mind comes to a screeching halt, and she can't move – can't fucking budge, not an inch. Her stomach clenches painfully and she feels her throat go dry, her grip tightening on her cup until her knuckles are white.
She sees the steely blue eyes first. The gaze she'd relied on for support when she'd travelled in that tiny car with him. A gaze she'd never quite forgotten, and she remembers waking up cold when he'd packed up and left. She remembers searching for him in this kitchen, waiting for him to come back – days on end before she'd gone to the police, begging them for help.
She remembers being willing to do anything to get him back.
Her words are croaked out when she speaks, and she's gone a horrible shade of white. "Clint."
The colour drains out of his face, then, and it's obvious he'd forgotten – inhibited in judgement, his hangover probably still pounding in his head, and he'd forgotten to fetch his glasses. She's suddenly aware of them in the ringing silence, sitting on the counter, and she slowly forces the coffee down to the table.
He roots himself down, though, and she knows he isn't going to run – she hates that she knows it, she hates that she knows he'll clench his fists before his fingers ball up. A tell, something she'd learned, something she'd filed away. It comes frothing to the surface now, and she's very well near to drowning.
The silence is deafening with a ringing before Natasha feels a seam burst, the initial shock giving way to everything she'd carefully locked away. Everything she'd buried, everything she'd tried to push down into herself once more.
"Natasha," he begins after a pause, a croak, and she feels something else shatter. "I–"
"Why are you here?" She manages to breathe out, her voice shaking, and she keeps her face schooled into an impeccable calm. It's unnerving, she can see it in his eyes – blue, wide, kind, blue, tired – but she straightens her back and keeps her gaze cold.
They hold their ground, just like they always had. Too proud to stand down, too fucking terrified to move forward, and they simply stay. He's desperate, and she's so bloody overwhelmed – she has questions and he has too many answers he'd want to pour out at once. This isn't about being the girl he'd paid for.
This is about being the girl he'd paid to leave behind.
The girl he'd left to be paid for.
She feels the initial anger she'd felt burning inside her – slow but sure as it fights back for the surface, trying to peak again, and she takes a step forward at his silence. Natasha's never had much patience, not even with her skill to hold it together, and she tightens a hand into a fist. "Why. Are. You. Here?" She repeats, although it's bitten out, carefully reined in.
"It doesn't matter–" He begins, but she's faster, cutting off a half-assed response that would leave neither of them satisfied.
"Why?" she gets out, low. Dangerous.
She's every bit the girl he'd found, now. The little girl who'd shot fifteen men, the one running for her life. She'd been knee deep in snow, and covered in blood, and he'd taken her to bed – to clean her wounds, to set her under covers. The only man who ever had – she should have fucking known the touch.
"I wanted to see you," he offers lamely, and it's laughable as it sits between them. They know she isn't taking it, and he almost winces at his answer. Natasha knows he's never been good with words – he'd tripped over his name when he'd introduced himself to her in that inn, and she'd laughed. She thought he must have found her strange, but he'd carried her up the stairs all the same.
He gathers his thoughts another second, and there's pain in the patience she musters to keep herself from shoving him out. Her instincts are screaming at her, but she focuses on his quiet breaths. She'd always been the better actress, she'd always been the better of them. So why'd he left?
"You wanted to see me," she repeats, her voice hollowed out.
He nods, cautious, and he steps forward. Natasha doesn't budge, at first, but she regards him with ice. Clint pauses after a second, and he stays where he is. Natasha folds her arms protectively, putting some space between them again, and she waits.
"Natasha," he says after a pause, and she flickers her gaze up to his. For the first time, her body feels remotely tainted – she'd allowed him to touch her, and she feels a need to scrub at her skin. "I had to leave. I thought– I thought you'd get a job, or–"
"I have a job," she says evenly. Cold, sharp – she hasn't anything to hide with this man. She behaves as she is, and she keeps her guard up around herself.
"This isn't a job," he returns, and a laugh passes through his lips before seems to realise it. "Natasha, look at you – you could've found a store, could have gone to school, I left you everything I had–"
She snorts, and he falls silent. He sets his jaw hard at that, and she stares back at him in challenge. "This is a job. I do my work, and I get paid for it. I'm good at it," she tells him, keeping her anger rippling below the surface, folding her arms. "You just – you promised, and I searched–"
Natasha flexes her fingers almost nervously, curling them into a fist. He's gone silent again, waiting for her to finish, and she can't find the words.
"I looked for you," she says desperately, her voice hoarse. She remembers the first nights on her own; the ones where she'd started sleeping in the middle of the bed and the ones she'd filled his place, craving contact. Where she'd begun to feed off the others, where she'd reduced herself to nothing more than a body to use; She'd convinced herself to like what she did, too, distracting herself with sweaty skin and tainted sheets. "I hated you."
"Good," he says, not daring to miss a beat. He finally steps forward, but Natasha refuses to back away – refuses to give him an inch of her territory. "So why didn't you forget?"
She finds herself at a quiet loss, and the silence of the flat slowly begins to unsettle her, slowly sinking into her bones. It only seems to remind her – a nagging, creeping ice up her spine – of who she is; Who she had become when he'd tired and left.
She inhales – a deep breath with the slightest trace of mint in the air burning her nose – and she refocuses her gaze as she collects her thoughts.
The answer is simple, hovering in front of her, and it's a simple matter of trying to silence the protests in her head. She hadn't forgotten because she couldn't, and she stares at him now with so much to ask, so much that she'd never managed to get after he'd left her alone.
She hasn't time to walk down a fucking memory lane.
"Get out," she says quietly. Clear, resolute, and simple, her eyes shut as she tries to block most of it out of her range.
"No," he returns, and he looks at her with a pressing gaze. "This is my flat, isn't it? Shouldn't I be welcome?"
She almost snarls, and she steps forward. "It's mine. You left me everything," she repeats, mocking him now with what she has. "Leave."
"You were getting me ice," he says calmly, his voice grating on her nerves, every inch of him burned into her. "Think you owe me that."
"I owe you nothing," she returns, sharp, and she folds her arms. "What, want me to thank you for leaving me a whore, Clint? Should I send the clients' regards for putting me on the market?"
"Stop that," he bites, and he steps forward with a clenched fist.
"You did this to me," she says again, cutting him with what she has – she knows that he can't stand the thought of hurting anyone more than he has to, and he's sliced clean through her. Natasha won't allow him to walk out guilt-free, she knows.
"I didn't," Clint says after a long, pained silence. "I was protecting you. I'd rather this than find you dead."
And she flares. "Protect?"
"We were friends," he insists, reaching out to touch her, and she slaps him hard.
The red shape of her hand blossoms on his skin and she smiles, smug. It's nowhere near what she could do, and they both know it – Clint steps away from her, and Natasha straightens up to her full height.
"Get out," she says, and she folds her arms again as she looks at him.
"You're going to be alone," he says in weak argument, and Natasha tightens her arms just a bit more than before.
"I'd rather be alone," she tells him, and she turns back to grab his glasses off the counter. She tosses them back at him, and she busies herself with coffee. Clint pauses behind her for a long moment, seeking an argument, seeking a reason to stay, but he's still at a loss.
He waits for her to turn, but she never does – instead, the sound of shuffling steps breaks through as he gathers his things and goes through the door. Natasha doesn't move an inch until she's absolutely sure he's gone, setting her mug down.
She runs hands through her hair as she tells herself it's all fine, lying as much as she can to try and calm herself down. She drops his shirt to the ground as soon as she can, and she steps into the shower to wash him off – scrubbing hard, as if her skin would be any cleaner without the taint of Clint's touch on and inside her.
She goes back to the money after an hour, and she turns it in her hands – flipping the blue paper in her hands again, only to spot the little message in a script all too familiar.
Happy birthday.
Her fingers crush it, and she sets it alight.