While this cheesy Christmas storyline is mine, the characters are not. Thank you, Marvel, for letting me borrow them.
After several hours of tossing, turning, and begging for sleep, she gave up. The numbers on her phone read 3:24 a.m. No messages. No kidding.
It was Christmas morning and Stark Tower was quiet and, all things considered, peaceful. As she stepped in the elevator and began her descent to street level she took a mental note of the buildings usual inhabitants. Tony had whisked Pepper off to some exotic tropical locale. Steve split his free time between the tower and his little apartment and she understood why he'd want to spend his first Christmas "back among the living" in his simple surroundings. Bruce was in the lab. That one she didn't even try to make an excuse for. Thor had not returned from Asgaard since the incident. She involuntarily clinched her fists when she thought about the incident. She hoped Loki was currently suffering in a lonely pit. He had better be suffering on his planet because of all the suffering he caused here on hers.
Before the elevator door opened, the familiar voice of JARVIS inquired, "Agent Romanoff, considering the time of day, would you like to provide a destination and return time as a precaution?" She laughed out loud. A computer cared about her safety. That was... what? Weird? Disconcerting? Comforting?
"Thank you, JARVIS, but I don't have a destination and I'm pretty good at taking care of myself."
"Noted, Agent Romanoff. Enjoy your walk."
She actually smiled as she walked out on to the street. The cold air smacked her face and she momentarily considered going back and crawling into her warm bed. But she kept walking and soon didn't mind the chill.
The early morning was quiet out here, too. The city that never sleeps was taking a quick break, it seemed. She imagined parents cuddled in beds while young children were beginning to wake up. Soon they would be jumping out of bed and running to see what Santa brought them. She'd better enjoy the relative calm of the city while she had it.
After a few blocks of walking and casual observing she kicked her skills into high gear. Was she being followed? No. Was she even being observed? That was a tougher call, but she didn't think so. Well, that was odd. Had she misread her earlier feeling regarding the final occupant of Stark Tower? She could have sworn Hawkeye was having the same restless night she was. Maybe their "Jedi connection" as Stark jokingly referred to their uncanny ability to read each other's thoughts, even when they weren't in the same room, was off tonight. That was odd.
She stopped in a little coffee shop and got the largest, strongest brew they had. As an afterthought, she bought one for him, too. She called it a hunch, but quickly regretted it. Given that her first instinct was off, she'd probably end up drinking both. Exactly what she didn't need.
When she entered the tower, JARVIS greeted her enthusiastically, as if she'd been gone on a two-month mission. She couldn't help smiling again. She guessed Stark programmed the AI that way on purpose. When all of Tony's superficial friends got too annoying, work was rough, he hit a dry spell with women (was that even possible?), and when being a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist wasn't all it's cracked up to be, there was always JARVIS to care. She could really appreciate that.
She pressed the button for her floor. "Agent Barton has requested your presence on his floor," the AI smoothly informed her. "He also said he hopes the coffee didn't get too cold."
With rolling eyes and a gentle shake of her head, she whispered, "Son of a bitch..."
"I often hear that response from Ms. Potts and that means she agrees to whatever Mr. Stark has suggested. Shall I assume the same for you?"
"Generally speaking, no. But in this case, yes. Thank you, JARVIS."
The elevator opened to revel Clint Barton leaning with his left shoulder against the gray wall. His arms were crossed and he wore a snug, though not tight, light purple tee shirt and black and purple plaid lounge pants. There was the barest hint of a smile on his face as his eyes were laser focused on her as she stepped into the room.
"Thanks for the coffee," he said simply.
"You're welcome," she replied as she handed over the steaming cup.
"Come on in and sit down in front of the tree."
"Tree?" she asked, her voice uncharacteristically shooting up an octave or two.
"Yes, tree. Tis the season. By the way, Merry Christmas, Nat."
As they turned the corner into his living room, there stood a huge Douglas Fir with twinkling white lights, some perfectly placed tinsel and a silver angel on the top branch. It was simple yet beautiful.
"If Stark sees this you will forever be known as Martha Stewart, ya know," was her reaction.
He laughed a real, genuine laugh. "Good point. I'll make sure it's gone before he and Pepper get back from Trinidad and Tobago."
"I thought they went to Turks and Caicos?" she countered.
"Does it really matter where they are? I'm here with you and that's all I care about right now," he said.
She stopped in mid stride with eyes wide and a cautious tilt of her head.
"Please sit down, Nat, before this Christmas miracle disappears."
Without a word she moved to the plush chair next to the tree and sat down with the coffee cup in a death grip between her hands.
After a heavy sigh, Hawkeye sat down in the chair across from her and took a sip of his coffee. "It's no secret that SHEILD has had me in some pretty heavy duty therapy after Loki. As much as I didn't want to go through it, it has helped. A lot. But what has helped the most is living at the tower and being part of the team."
His voice was determined and confident, but it had a soft edge to it that was so rare she couldn't remember the last time she heard it.
"It also helped seeing you everyday. You were a big part of the therapy, too."
That was a shock to her. "What part did I play in your therapy?"
"They showed me your interrogation of Loki."
She nearly dropped the cup and almost threw up what she'd already drunk, but never outwardly twitched a muscle.
"I've managed to come to terms with what I did while under his control. I'll never actually get over it, but I've learned to compartmentalize that as part of a very specific and difficult job that I willingly do."
He stopped talking for so long and looked so distant she began to wonder if he fell asleep. "Buuuuuut...," she finally said.
He immediately came back to himself. "But I can never come to terms with what he said to you. How he was going to use me to kill you. That's something only I can deal with. There's not a shrink in the world with enough training to fix that."
She understood that completely. One thing she could thank the Red Room for was self-diagnosis and self-treatment. When you know everything about yourself, you know how to fix yourself. Of course, admitting certain things to yourself was part of the process and she had chosen not to master that. Quite the opposite, in fact. There were certain truths, well one meaningful truth, that she would not admit for fear of... fear of... just plain fear.
"So I worked through it. And I think I fixed myself," he continued.
Again silence. Not uncomfortable, but very heavy with anticipation.
She said, "Aaaaaaaaaand..."
"And, here's how I connected the dots," he began. "You moved Heaven and Earth - and the Hulk - to save my sorry ass. What did you get for your trouble? Loki threatens to take your life via my hands. Oh, then you take me on head to head, hand to hand, to quite literally break the spell. And fight side-by-side WITH me with no hesitation. You trusted me with your life." He was starting to babble and he recognized it. He sat back, took a deep breath and said, "Look, Nat. I can handle the thought of you dying on a mission. What I can't handle is the thought of hurting you. At any time. In any way. There is nobody in this world or any other world who I care about more. I trust you with my life. I can't deny it any longer. Not to anyone, not to me, and most importantly, not to you. I don't know what to do about this, but I need to make sure you know. I love you, Nat."
The silence was deafening. They stared at each other over a distance of two feet that may as well have been two lifetimes. And in some ways, it was. What happened next had the potential to close their lifelong chapters of solitude and loneliness and begin a life of sharing feelings, experiences, and, if they dared, love. Far from perfect to be sure, but perfection is mostly overrated.
"Well," she finally sighed, "talk about your Christmas miracles. You love me, huh? You think you really love me?" It almost sounded like a dare.
"I know I love you. I've loved you for a very long time. I was just too much of a coward to admit it to myself, let alone you. We can blame this on Loki, too," he said with a slightly goofy smile ghosting on his face.
Natasha casually leaned forward and smoothly placed her coffee cup on the floor to the right of chair. "Well, Barton, as usual, I one-upped you. See, not only have I loved you for, well, a long time, I've been IN love with you. For those keeping score at home, I just went ahead." A playful smile lit up her face and was truly reflected in her eyes. That's when he knew she was all in. His gamble paid off and she felt the same.
As he stood up from his chair and closed the physically short, as well as the figuratively long, distance between them, his smile was radiant. "Semantics, is your new game? I always knew you had a killer body and brains to match. Funny how losing myself to you feels like a win."
"Agent Barton, as the winner, you deserve a prize." She looked into his shining eyes for just a split second before closing hers and allowing their kiss to consume her.