A short drabble inspired by Christina Perri and Jason Mraz's "Distance." I'd recommend listening to the song after or while reading this. Written because I needed a break from Hide & Seek, which I'd appreciate you checking out.
Distance
Before the wedding, Natasha could never picture Clint in a chapel, in a suit with a bright purple tie, standing at the altar with tears clouding his normally alert eyes. He didn't seem the type to fall in love, and neither did she.
When he started showing signs of starting to, she teased him mercilessly, always making sure to remind him that love is for children, hoping to scare him away before he got too tangled in her web. When he tried to give her the arrow necklace while they were perched on a rooftop in Budapest, she laughed and told him to quit being so damn sentimental. When he insisted, his blue eyes pleading, she backed away and told him the truth—there wasn't, and couldn't be, anything between them.
Thanks to a five-story freefall, Clint ended up in a coma at the end of that mission. He never found out that, when she was given his things while he was still fighting for his life in surgery, she found the necklace in the bottom of his quiver. He didn't need to know that she kept it and, whenever they were sent on different missions, she wore it. He also didn't need to know that, when she barged into the recovery room, even pushing aside a nurse who dared stand in her way, the first thing she told him was, "I love you too much for you put me through this again, Barton."
That's how it worked, for awhile at least. Natasha would tell him she loved him only when she knew he wasn't listening. Like when he came down with a severe infection after being grazed by a rusty knife and fell into a delirium for two agonizing days in a sleazy Russian motel room. Like when his hearing aids shorted out when he saved her from drowning after her mark figured out who she was, tied her up and threw her off a bridge and into a river. Like when he was trapped in yet another nightmare and saying it was the only thing that could get him to stop thrashing.
Through it all, she never once imagined walking down the aisle towards him, carrying a bouquet of dahlias, wearing a flowing white dress with a purple sash instead of her familiar SHIELD-issued black uniform, white heels instead of her worn black boots. She never pictured him smiling at her, his blue eyes filled with joy and hope. And she never thought she would turn to the left before reaching the altar and take her place among the bridesmaids.
The band begins to play Here Comes the Bride, and Laura makes her entrance, her dress shimmering in the light. Natasha can't watch. She had found out about Laura by accident; when Clint landed in the hospital yet again after getting some shrapnel embedded in his left knee, she found a picture of a girl in one of the pockets of his combat vest. She put it back and never let on she knew. She figured it wouldn't last anyway; Clint didn't seem the type to let himself get tied down.
But he was, and Natasha had watched him fall in love all over again. He took to calling Laura before every mission, always whispering some promise at the end—we'll have a movie night, I'll look at your air conditioner, we'll go to that Indian restaurant you were telling me about, as soon as I get back. Once, she caught him dreamily looking at her picture as they hid on a rooftop in Moscow, waiting for their mark to appear in his bathroom window. She reminded him love was for children, and he just smiled. Then, one day, Clint pulled a small, white box out of his pocket.
Natasha's heart immediately started fluttering in her chest. She couldn't help it. He opened the box, and she waited for him to drop to one knee, even though she didn't know what she would say. She figured that she would probably only smack him. But he didn't. Instead he asked, his voice so earnest, it shattered her already fractured heart: "Do you think Laura will like it?
Thinking back on it now, as she watches Laura take her place at the altar by Clint's side, she knows that she should have told him right then and there that she loved him, that she had from the day he made a different call and changed her life forever. But she hadn't; she waited until he was already on his phone, telling Laura that he was back from Poland and wanted to meet her at their favorite park, to whisper it to the wind.
Besides, Natasha isn't the type to fall in love. But Clint was, and he had. And now she'll have to keep her distance, never tell him that she still loves him because he may be listening.