if Frost had only dreamed of us
rating: pg
characters: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoffwarnings: references to violent pasts
author's note i: Written during the be_compromised Valentine's Day mini-promptathon, for the prompt of "Natasha knows all about seduction, how to woo men and make them do what they want. But she doesn't know how to go about getting just a hug or some cuddle time."
author's note ii: Inspired by watching the Olympic pair figure skating. 'Frost' refers to Robert Frost, famous for (among others) his poem 'Fire and Ice'.
summary: The shadows of her homeland are long and cold and empty. You know she has no words to ask for warmth; you know she's never needed them.
if Frost had only dreamed of us
You think, there is ice in her heart. You know her pale wrists, strong enough to break a man's neck and gentle enough to sew a four-inch wound, and you think, they used garroting wires like marionette strings. It is not so hard, in moments like these, to see the young girl raised and twisted by crueler hands, made to dance to bloody arias for the pleasure of her handlers.
You see the Widow in the face washed out by the television's glare, strange hollows and curves that you should know like your own hands, your old bows by now.
You also see the child.
She lets you; you know this as well. If she wanted to hide all her scars, all the hollow places in her, you would see nothing but the mask of Natasha Romanoff, the agent who can watch figure skating in her homeland with a pleasant smile and bright eyes.
You think you should be scared by the trust that lies between you.
She shifts, settles back into the couch with unease in her curled posture, her pinched lips, and finally glances up at you. And it sings, this thing that runs from your heart through your feet out to her, that stretches and pulls and connects two killers in the dark of your apartment. You know the woman lying on your couch in a too-large sweatshirt from a college she's never visited, in ankle socks turned a brilliant white by the light from the television, with hands under her head and a question she doesn't know how to ask in her eyes.
Natasha Romanoff, Natalia Romanova, half a dozen other names she has been called by and given herself over a lifetime of playing to Death's melodies – it doesn't matter. You love her, the woman underneath those mantles and barbed wires, and the only thing that keeps you alive is that the tie which binds you isn't garroting wire at all.
She stretches a hand out to you, uncertain and unsure but needing all the same, and you take it.
You always have.
Russia's pride and joy dance together with blades on their feet and trust in their hands while you watch, another discarded champion tucked up against you, resting her head on your chest. You are proud of her. There is ice in her heart enough to match the sweeping expanses that these skaters glide across so easily, so gracefully, in a performance the whole world watches; but there is fire too, and you will hold her until she remembers this.
You could burn the world, if she needed it to remember this.
That should scare you. But the woman curled in your arms is a weapon unto herself, and this thing between you is bright and sharp and silver in the night, and you know there is ice in your heart as well.
You lie like this until she falls asleep in the early dawn, dreaming of distant worlds and past lives. You think, it's enough.
And it is.
fin