"What the hell did they do to our characters, Tasha!" Clint's voice sounded dangerously like a whine, gaining him an irritated look from Liho, who was perched on the backrest behind him.
"You were the one insisting on seeing this movie," the woman responded, a non-plussed eyebrow arched, but she didn't show any other external sign of disaste.
Natasha was currently resting her head on her partner's thigh; her hand idly stroking the aforementioned thigh was the only thing that kept Clint Barton, archer extraordinaire and -apparently- family man, on the couch, watching that awful movie that was slaying everyone's personality, but especially the ones of the two ex SHIELD agents.
After the Battle of New York, the US Government basically ordered to Nick Fury to give the rights to make movies inspired to the Avengers. After what they witnessed, people needed heroes to rely on, they said, and -apparently- blockbusters were the right way to reassure people. But Clint suspected it was more the case that someone high enough in the Goverment had ties with that Marvel Movies inc., and making a lot of movie out of it.
"The first movies weren't bad at all," he defended himself, "some rookie errors in the actions scenes but overall they were as entertaining and accurate as they could be. This one, instead...OMG, what were they thinking?"
"They gave me a farm! Didn't they care to read my biography, since it's now online? A place like that helds only bad memories for me and they made it the secret hideaway for MY FAMILY? God, I can barely take care of Lucky, let alone of tiny humans depending on me! "
"You're starting to rant..." Natasha intervened, but she stroked his thigh with a comforting hand. Clint didn't want to be reminded of the awful childhood he spent in Middle-of-Nowhere, Iowa. He never said a word about it, but the spy could see how uncomfortable he was everytime they had a mission in the Midwest.
Clint wasn't done with his objections, though.
"And, with all the respect for the actress, she's not even my type!"
He was starting to get quite irritated. Ok, Hawkeye apparently was the least marketable of the Avengers, but what they did to him was just sloppy writing. How they could think it was believable for a high profile assassin who did missions with no extraction plans on daily basis to have a secret family stashed somewhere without anyone knowing about it? A cookie cutter family noneteless! One without any development, that seemed to arrive straight from some Hallmark movie!
"It's appalling what they did to us! I mean...they could have at least make me married with Bobbi! It would have...ouch!"
That sentence gained him a painful pinch on the tender skin of the inside of his thigh. Bobbi and Natasha were in good terms, but the red-head didn't like to be reminded of his ex-wife; even if their marriage was short and messy and they were way better off as friends and co-workers rather than as a couple. Bobbi and Hunter, instead, boy they did have it hot for each other! Even if they fought like cat and dog.
"Look at you Nat..." he wisely changed the subject, "you became a blushing schoolgirl battling your eyelashes at Bruce! They made you a damsel in distress who wasn't even able to get free from that ridiculous prison! They had no respect!"
His tirade was mostly frustration caused by the liberties the authors took to create a version of themselves mirroring what they wanted and not what they really were; probably they thought nobody would really care about what happened to Hawkeye and Black Widow when there were a billionare in a metal suit, the perfect poster boy of America, a demi-God and a green rage monster who was surprisingly popular among children.
Until that moment it was just wounded pride at being so little considered that it was ok to give him a shitty storyline that looked more as an afterthought than anything else and to Natasha and even shittier one where she was just a tool to make that awkard Bruce on screen shine. What it was, the wet dream of the fanboys among the authors that wanted the nerd guy to get the hot girl, even if there clearly wasn't any chemistry between them?
When the Black Widow in the movie said she was a monster, though, Clint got really angry.
He felt Natasha stiffen against him, she acted as those words didn't affect her, but Clint knew better.
She was being called a monster because she was tore away from her family when she was a child and then brainwashed, forced to kill and sexually exploited and finally because they brought away from her the possibility to be a mother? And all of this only to create a connection between her character and the Hulk? That was horrible, direspectful and disgusting.
A white hot rage churned in his stomach and he forcefully zapped out the TV. What started almost as a joke turned out to be a bitter disappontment. A monster? That was what they thought of his Natasha after all she did?
"It's ok Clint. That was just a stupid movie." Natasha said calmly, but Clint was able to detect the hurt behind her apparent detached tone.
""It isn't ok at all!" he responded, "They have no right to treat you like that!"
"It isn't so bad, they gave you a family dropped out of nowhere and living in your personal version of hell!" she joked.
"Don't act like it's nothing...what they did is horrible."
Clint turned to look at her, forcing Natasha to move and sit up. The archer took the chance to take her face in his hands and made her to look at him.
"Would you call monsters those children soldiers from Africa, Nat? Or those little kids so indoctrinated they made themselves explode? They aren't monsters, they are victims...as you are."
Natasha looked away, as ever she did have a lot of difficulties in believing him when he said those things.
"Nat, please..." he pleaded, "You aren't a monster. You're a survivor, a fighter who is still trying to wipe the red on your ledger. But you couldn't help yourself back then, don't forget that. I ended up on the wrong side of the law because of the shitty choices I made, you were only trying to survive."
"You too are a survivor, Clint. You too didn't know better until Phil dragged your starving, stubborn street kid's ass to SHIELD."
"And you wonder why they didn't give a crap about us?" Clint said with a rueful smile.
"Well...at least the actors playing us are hot..." she responded, and with a smirk she closed the distance between them.