The setting is from the comics, so Clint lives in his apartment in New York. He's single. Other than that, it's mainly Movie universe.
Clint's apartment was a mess.
It usually was.
The only difference between this time and the others was that he had shoved everything to one side, so one half was nearly spotless and the other was a trash dump.
On the side of his comfort chair was a newspaper, which Clint was reading.
So it's that time of year again.
Maybe something will change.
Nah.
The first headline read: "WINTER STORM- BIGGEST SNOWFALL YET" and went on about road traffic.
The second headline read: "FAMILY REUNITED AFTER 20 YEARS" and went on about Christmas.
Clint was usually purposely away on a mission at Christmastime, but Fury decided to give him the Eve and day off. In other words, Fury would set all the systems to lockdown if Clint came within a five miles radius of any S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.
So here he was, sitting in his chair, reading the newspaper, and at a total loss of what to do.
For starters, I could make coffee, he thought. But he didn't plan on being home for Christmas, so there was no extra coffee to drink.
What about getting the decorations set up? Clint eyed the boxes that he'd gotten out of the attic, unopened and so unused that there was only one layer of tape on them. Sighing heavily, Clint got out of the comfort chair and lumbered over. To be honest, he hadn't even gotten out of his bathrobe yet. How was he going to get all these decorations set up? Clearly, this wasn't a job to be tackled by Hawkeye. He would just put the boxes back where they came from. He would just put them back into the attic. He would just…
Something stopped him.
If you can't be a hero, at least be human.
Be a person.
Clint Barton straightened his back, walked toward the boxes, and tried for five whole minutes to get the tape off, unsuccessfully. Fortunately, the box he had been handling happened to be a set of straw-man peanuts figurines, so the only damage was on Barton's part. He finally decided to get a knife from the kitchen. Cutting through the boxes one by one, he found that most of the supplies gave no recognition to his memories. He almost had to laugh.
I guess presents come early this year. No extra cost. Lots of target boards.
The last one…was different. Having set down the knife on the top of the nearest open box (many of which were now surrounding him) Clint peered inside to find not a string of stale popcorn or pressed mistletoe (which was in the second to last box; it was disgusting and he had to throw it out), but a clear faceted teardrop with a thin strand of gold forming a loop. The rest of the box was filled with package peanuts. Clint held up the ornament by its loop, watching as it spun around. This one, he remembered. He gently placed it back in its box.
…
I better get dressed.
Clint headed off to his room and came out two hours later, fully clothed and holding a cellphone to his ear while he searched through one of the boxes. "Yeah, Natasha, I'm actually doing this for once. Don't tell the others, Steve will get all teary-eyed and Stark would probably just laugh. But if you'd come over, I'd totally be fine with that." He paused, shifting his phone up slightly. "Okay, okay, fine. Will you please come over for Christmas?" He paused again, his mouth curling upward into a smile. "Okay, and one more thing? If you did it for me I'd be eternally grateful." There was a snort on the other end, but Natasha listened.
"Could you get a tree? I wasn't planning on this anyways, so I didn't get one. The height of my living space is ten feet, and my door dimensions are-" There was a click on the other end. Clint shook it a few times, listening, before finally turning it off and settling on the couch, sighing. Now all he could do was wait.
Clint awoke to a tapping on his window. Shaking off his sleep, he got up and turned to the noise. Clint's eyebrows furrowed, then widened in surprise as Natasha crashed through his side window.
"Natasha, what was that for?!" he shouted. Black Widow stood up and picked off the shards in her sweater. "What?" She walked around the broken glass littered on the floor. "I brought your tree, by the way. Do you know how expensive those are?"
"What, is the tree outside the window too?" asked Clint sarcastically.
"No, it's actually outside the door. See, I obviously couldn't go through the door when there's a tree in the way, so the only other option was a window. Are those reindeer?"
"Huh? Oh." Clint looked down at the fuzzy green sweater he was wearing. Three reindeer leaped across the front, bordered by red and yellow jingle bells. "Yeah. You don't look to shabby yourself, except I'd hate to see that knitted masterpiece ruined by a different kind of red. You're lucky that my glass happens to be the non-splintering kind."
"I'm not lucky, I'm observant." Natasha laughed. "We switched it out last Thanksgiving, remember?"
Clint recalled when Natasha had broken through his window that fall, wearing a kevlar hoodie and announcing that she needed to teach him real cooking, whatever that meant.
"How could I forget." He sighed again, squinting at the glass littered floor.
In any case, it'll be good protection against burglars. Better leave it where it is.
Just to be safe, Clint put a few of the empty boxes around the site to remind himself where it was. Natasha had already gone over to the apartment door and opened it, revealing a huge evergreen.
Much too big for the apartment. For the doorway, even.
"You planned this, didn't you?" Clint grumbled. Natasha just smiled.
Managing to get himself outside his room, Clint physically hoisted the tree onto its side and proceeded to stuff it into his apartment. The pressure towards the end got stronger and stronger until finally the bottom layer of branches snapped in half and Clint tumbled to the floor, making little breath-clouds as his stomach heaved up and down.
"I'm getting too old for this," Clint said.
"Clint! Do you realize how expensive that tree was?! I had to pay over a hundred for that!"
"Yeah, I'm sure SHIELD slacks on giving you payroll." He grunted, positioning himself upright. "Speaking of which, you owe me for the window."
"I'm sure my cooking will be more than enough to repay your expenses." Natasha stomped on the broken branches, smiling at the satisfying crack of each one.
"You only say that when I'm the one buying the food." A cold winter draft pushed through the open door. Clint, fully standing now, went to close it. The only problem was that the stump was still in the way. Clint lifted it up and pushed it forward, making pine needles shed everywhere. Then he carefully treaded his way through the glass to set the blinds down on the broken window. After a thought, he set the blinds on all the windows.
I wonder if the neighbors ever get nervous.
"Hey, I thought you were going to get the food." Natasha bent over, peering into his refrigerator. She tossed a frosted Ziploc bag onto the counter. "We are not eating pizza for Christmas."
Clint straightened. "I'm pretty sure the kitchen downstairs has an extra turkey."
"It's probably gone by now."
"I wasn't going to risk having you outside the door while I was out. Thinking about it, having you inside while I'm out was not the best idea either."
"Hey, you're the one who called." Natasha closed the fridge, balancing several food sources in her arms.
"Make a Christmas wish, Clint, and hope it's still there. I'll get started-"
Natasha looked up and stopped. Clint had already left.
Well then.
…
Better get started.
Natasha looked through the bottom cabinets in Barton's kitchen.
"There's got to be a bowl somewhere," she muttered. "Where does he eat his cereal from, the box?" Despite all this, Barton was still a great friend, and the only person she could talk to about past experiences. A bowl was eventually found behind a stack of glass decorative plates. It was the only one she could find.
"Then again," she reasoned, "Maybe he gave up on cereal for extra time with coffee." She spread out a cup of flour on the cutting board Clint had set up.
After thirty minutes she almost finished baking a loaf and Clint still hadn't returned.
"By the time I'm finished," she muttered, "I'll make sure I've used up alllllll his ingredients on a fruitcake."
Fourty minutes later Clint came back. His nose was bleeding and his sweater was undone in some places, but he had a turkey.
"This is just like the missions I usually get sent on," said Clint, "only this time I don't get paid."
"You could have bought one."
"I just did. I'm strongly reminded why I spend Christmas away. These people are crazy!" He paused. "Is that bread?"
"I made Cranberry Kissel too, with cassava." Seeing his eyebrows raise, she added, "It's a lot better than what you have to drink currently-"
"No, it's nothing bad that you made it….this might be okay. This might even be better than okay."
Natasha slowly smiled, but not with her mouth. It was one of those grins that smiled without smiling, the one where the whole face lights up in calm happiness. "Merry Christmas, Clint."
Christmas Eve turned out to be more than okay. Clint cooked the turkey, Natasha took out the decorative plates she saw earlier when looking for a bowl, and they ended up getting flour everywhere.
"Make a wish," Clint said, blowing flour in her direction.
"Alright," she said, laughing, "I wish that the turkey will be edible."
"No!" Clint almost shouted. "If you say it out loud, it won't come true!" He grinned. "It this gets ruined, I'm blaming you."
"Drink your Kissel, Clint."
Clint played a mix tape he found in one of the boxes. Not all of it was Christmas themed, but that was alright.
So they ended up on the couch with cranberry Kissel, listening to Shanghai Memories of 1945 when Natasha brought out a Bible.
"This is why people celebrate Christmas."
She read from Matthew 1: 18-25, reading about Jesus' birth.
"Huh," Clint said.
The turkey ended up not being burnt at all, which was a good thing because Natasha was not going to eat frozen pizza, and Clint wasn't going out to buy a new one. It was, in all, the best Christmas Clint had ever come by. He told her so, and Natasha laughed.
They set up the tree later, propping it up against a corner in the wall and having a contest to see who could add the ugliest ornaments. There was a wide selection to choose from.
"Hey Clint, what's this?" Natasha was holding up the teardrop ornament. Frosted over the glass was a bird midflight.
"Put it back in the box." Natasha looked at him, puzzled, but put it back.
"It's from Bobby." Clint walked over and closed the box quietly, setting it aside from the others.
There was an assortment of lights to choose from. In the end they strung two strands- one white, one red. For all their years of being unused, they shone brightly.
"Too bad there aren't any presents," she said. Clint just smiled.
It was about 11:50 on Christmas Eve when Clint took out the roller bed. He was used to her visits.
"I'll sleep on the couch, you sleep on the bed."
Midnight.
"Merry Christmas, Clint," she said.
Merry Christmas, indeed.
Natasha left sometime before noon with a parcel of leftovers and a smile. The wind was freezing everything in sight, and a layer of snow covered the sidewalks. She almost felt bad for ruining it.
This has nothing on Russia.
...
No presents, huh?
Clint had surprised her. It rarely happened, but he managed to do it, and even as the snow still fell in light doses and the wind continued freezing it did nothing to stem the warmth from a silver arrow shaped pendant strung around her neck.
Merry Christmas, all, and a happy New Year.