Title: Mirror, Mirror
Summary: Natasha has handled intergalactic space invaders without flinching ("Yeah, it'll be fun."), but she cannot speak about what starts in Wisconsin. There can only be one.
Notes: wrote for V, inspired by that Tumblr photoset that's like Black Widow Orphan Black!AU (linked on the Tumblr post). I'm not upset there isn't a Black Widow movie, you're upset.
She's drinking coffee when Clint slides into her favorite booth with the strangest look on his face.
Nat has seen him do a lot of bizarre things with his face, so this is saying something.
When he doesn't speak and just sits there, staring like she is the most fascinating thing this side of the galaxy, she puts down her mug and says, "What?"
Clint leans forward, still looking at her as if he's never quite seen her before. "How'd you do it?" he asks.
"Do what?"
Tilts his head. It's the look he gets when he sees an impossible target and is figuring out how to pierce it through and through. He starts out simple. "Saw you yesterday."
Natasha blinks. "No," she says slowly, "you didn't. You were looking up leads from that suicide case in bumblefuck Wisconsin. Remember? You were real pissed about it."
"And I saw you there." He whips some photos out from underneath his leather jacket, slams them down in front of her.
She leans forward to see what the fuss is about before he makes a scene. Despite his… "cool demeanor", Barton is prone to unpredictable fits of drama queen behavior. His name is Hawkeye, after all. If Superman hadn't already been taken, Nat bets he'd've have gone for it.
Still, he is getting a bit unusually frantic and strange faced, like he is spooked. No one in the café has given them too much attention yet and Nat wants it to stay that way. She will never tell anyone this, but this is her favorite of all the café she frequents - not that she comes here all the time because she has to keep changing it up, of course. No routines. Routines are dangerous.
To be fair, so is she, and if Clint makes it impossible to return, so help her…
Clint jabs his finger in the dead center of the photograph, obscuring the face. "See?"
She looks down stares at dark red hair against the earthy green of forestry and gray of peeling paint for a moment. It's smartphone quality, a bit grainy from being blown up on a computer and a bit smudged, as if it had been taken on the run.
But she had spent yesterday trawling through the internet in search of interesting phenomena for their supernatural firm to investigate. After what happened in New York with the Chitauri, they had their pick of cases, but sometimes, when left to examine missing fluorescent fauna, it meant they were scraping the bottom of the barrel and needed to look elsewhere. Hell if she was going to fight a glowing bunny, even if it was Bunnicula.
The point being: she'd been in their New York office. Nowhere near northern Wisconsin.
One tug on a curl and she shrugs. Sip. "Stark's gotten better at Photoshop, yeah?"
"Nat -"
"Have a croissant." She shoves it toward him. "Your brain is apparently under a state of glucose deprivation if you think I'll fall for this prank."
"I know it's hard to believe - I mean, see here?" Another jab at the woman in the photograph. "She's smiling. Your face can smile. Did you know that? I didn't know that."
She considers breaking the croissant plate against his face only to dismiss the idea. The goal is to be able to come back here. Damaging their things would be… counter-productive.
"Anyway," he says, nibbling on an end of the croissant, "Stark is out somewhere with Pepper, doing unmentionable things that'll probably make the sewers look clean by comparison -"
Nat scoffs and downs the rest of her coffee. Like Pepper would. She has that man of hers on a leash. Maybe literally, sometimes.
She winces at the thought and steals the crispy layer off the croissant.
"Hey!" Barton pulls the plate away. "I thought that was mine now."
Nat stares at him with an eyebrow raised and chews slower. After she swallows, she leans into the plush back of her booth and considers.
The photo doesn't smell like a Hawkeye thing. He'd learned from the disastrous secret birthday party incident last year.
At least she hopes so.
She sweeps her tongue across her top teeth in thought. Clint looks actually freaked out, as if he'd seen a ghost. It's probably one of those weird freak happenings of biology, she thinks, surprised she is… disappointed, for lack of a better word. At some point in the development of her notoriety, she remembers sitting alone at a bus stop in Western Europe's pelting rain and wanting a sister.
Wanting to not suffer alone, in a moment of weakness.
Nat shoves the sentiment crawling in her chest back into its cage. Still, the chances of two similar - not identical, similar - human beings is lower than winning the lottery. Banner could probably calculate it exactly, with all the right data.
And she has some free vacation time racked up that she does have to use…
"Ready to go?" she asks, sliding out of the booth.
Clint's blue eyes flick up. Half the croissant sticks out of his mouth and flecks of it are all over his lips. She doesn't quite twitch at the sight, but it's a close thing. Gods, men. What was with the lot of them. "Guh hair?"
"Where do you think?" She nudges the side of his head with her elbow. "North Bumbfuck, Wisconsin."
She doesn't watch him throw money to cover her - their - breakfast, but she can hear the clear ring and clatter of quarters on the table. His presence follows her.
They're out in the autumn chill when she thinks to ask, "What's her name?"
Not sure if I'm going to continue this or not, but thus far, I am interested. So... check back here, maybe?