Clint took a little while longer than necessary in the locker room. Archery Club practice had been particularly hard today and he was a bit sore, though it was nothing he couldn't handle. Some idiots had decided it would be a good idea to play a prank on their coach, which had never ended well in the past. They had all been made to do 500 extra pushups and to run laps all practice, even the ones who had been against the idea. Clint would have quit the team then and there; he had always preferred to work solo. It was just that the school had better equipment than he could ever afford and there was no way he was going to make it on the Olympic team if he didn't learn to work with one first. He finished changing and shut his locker door, leaving the smell of sweat and axe behind. When he got out of the locker room, however, he bumped into someone. "Sorry," he said, not looking up from his phone.
"And a hello to you too." That voice was one he knew, and it wasn't one of his teammates'. Looking up, Clint found himself staring into a pair of bright blue eyes. "Nat! Hey! What are you doing here? School ended like 2 hours ago." She gave him a pointed look. "The class I teach ended early today, so I figured I'd come and watch you practice." As if she didn't do this every day. He grinned at her, taking her hand in his, and they made their way to the front of the school where Clint had parked his bike that morning.
Clint hopped on, put on his helmet, and threw Natasha's to her. They rode in silence, save a few shouted questions and answers about how the other's day had gone. The bike soon rolled into the parking lot of the Hawknest, Clint's older brother Barney's coffee shop and their usual hangout, and Clint went in back to change into his uniform while Natasha sat in her usual seat on the sofa in the corner. He returned wearing his uniform t-shirt and apron and carrying two cups of coffee. Nat took hers graciously, stealing a sip and giving him a satisfied grin before opening her mouth. "Have I ever told you how great a cup of coffee you can make?" He smiled back. "Only every day."
This, this was all a part of their daily routine. Every day Natasha met Clint after archery and every day they came down to the Hawknest to have a cup of coffee and have a little alone time, which was a scarce commodity at their high school, especially with the friends they had. Alone time probably wasn't even in Stark's vocabulary. They were just lucky everyone else had work at this time of day. Clint sat down and leaned against Natasha, drinking his coffee and just enjoying being alone with his girlfriend.
Soon, the late rush started, and Clint had to abandon the much-preferred spot on the couch for the counter, making lattes and cappuccinos with ease while Natasha took a nap. The shift ran smoothly with Clint sneaking to sit with Natasha whenever he got a chance. When Barney arrived from his classes and gave him the ok to head home, Clint threw his apron into the back and moved to wake Natasha. "Come on, Nat, time to leave." She grumbled something about 5 more minutes and rolled over. He grinned and, laughing, said, "Fine. Just remember you brought this onto yourself." He grabbed her shoulder and rolled her back over, planting a huge kiss on her mouth before she could protest. This was a risky business, waking Natasha up from a nap. Do it the wrong way and you could find yourself pinned to the ground with what may or may not be a minor concussion. Clint had years of experience, though, and knew just the right way to avoid any chance of an attack. He easily dodged the half-hearted kick aimed his way and threw himself next to her on the couch, wrapping her in a hug and laughing. "Nat, come on, let's go. If I have to carry you all the way to my bike and strap you to it, so help me I will." She grudgingly rolled back over in his arms to face him and stuck her tongue out at him. "There we go, that's more like it. Now come on, if we're late your parents will think I've kidnapped you or something."
Natasha's "parents" had actually adopted her from an orphanage in Russia when she was 8 and brought her to America. She had spent her first year and a half staying silent and fending off anyone who showed signs of wanting to be her friend. People soon learned she didn't want any friends and turned to bullying her instead. They teased her about her fire red hair, her Russian accent (even though she had basically lost it by then); anything they felt was proper teasing material. She could deal with most of it with a straight face, but at any mention of her birth parents' abandonment of her, she beat the shit out of the offender and stayed up all night crying. It reminded her how lonely she was, how unwanted. It wasn't that she didn't want friends; she just felt no one in her new home could really understand her, a little orphan from Russia.
The teasing had been particularly bad that day, and there were too many of them for Natasha to defend herself like usual with any hope of coming out of it unscathed. She knew she was defeated and had resigned to standing with her back against the lockers behind her, trying to hold back tears. When Clint first passed by, he marked the scene up to a group of friends hanging out by their lockers and thought nothing of it. As soon as he caught Natasha's eye, however, and saw the hurt in her expression, he knew something was up.
He knew nothing about her at the time, just that she had been adopted from Russia about a year ago and that her classmates said it was ok to tease her, because she didn't care. He had never actually seen her, he just recognized her by her bright red hair, so vibrant it was unnatural. No one else in the school had hair quite that color and, in all honesty, he thought it was beautiful.
She was about to crack, he could tell, and he acted without thinking. Coming up to the bully closest to him, Clint grabbed them and shoved them aside. "Will you guys just cut it out already? She's clearly had enough." Natasha looked up from the floor when he spoke, awestruck. In the entire time she had been in America, no one had ever stood up for her. She was filled with a sudden burst of courage and grabbed one of her tormenters, slamming him against the locker and punching him square in the nose, which immediately started spurting blood. When the crowd moved in closer to her, Clint planted himself next to the strange Russian girl and glared around, daring anyone to attack. The leader was still on the floor, hand held to his broken nose. Not wanting anything else damaged, and knowing that would certainly happen if they tried to take on these two, he called his group off and they scampered in the direction of the nurse's office.
Once the crowd was gone, Natasha turned to thank Clint and found him grinning like a maniac. "Did you see their faces? That was so awesome! And the way you decked that guy, right in the nose, BAM! That was so cool!" She stood there, startled. She had never gotten compliments on beating someone up before. She usually got told fighting wasn't very ladylike and made to apologize. This boy, though, he had not only stood up for her but was telling her she was awesome. She smiled at him, the first real smile she had given since leaving Russia, and when he held out his hand she actually shook it. "Clint Barton." "Natasha Romanoff."
The two had been inseparable since that day, becoming best friends and effortlessly sliding into a more romantic relationship once high school started, as naturally as taking a breath. Natasha had eventually become friends with the group Clint hung out with, but none of them had as much of her trust as he did. If fifth grade when her parents were on the brink of divorce, it was Clint she came to for comfort. In middle school, when Clint had yet again caught his most recent girlfriend cheating on him, it was Natasha who took his pint of ice cream away from him and forced him to get over her, even though she had known from the start that this girlfriend was just like all his other past girlfriends: no good.
Now it was junior year and Clint and Natasha were practically a married couple. They had a sort of unspoken language between the two of them, which Tony was convinced was some kind of telepathy. Nat didn't own a car. She didn't need one; Clint just drove her everywhere on his bike. She came to all his archery competitions, even though she already knew he would win, and he came to all her fighting matches, pretending to be surprised when she took down men twice her size in seconds.
Natasha grunted as she got up from the couch, taking Clint's outstretched hand and pulling herself up to kiss him before grabbing her bag and walking out to his bike. He followed, leaning in for one more kiss before putting his helmet on and straddling the bike. She followed suit and wrapped her hands around his waist, leaning her head against his sleepily. When they reached her house, she gave him an affectionate knock to the helmet and removed hers, blowing him a kiss and walking inside. Clint grinned as he drove away into the night, wondering what the hell he had done right to deserve someone as perfect her and not willing to question whatever divine entity had made it so.
Clint trudged down the school hallway toting a cup of coffee and bags under his eyes. Today was going to be a long day, he could tell. He tipped back the last of his coffee as he walked into his next class: Coulson's Global Awareness class. He was immediately met by a booming voice coming from one of his friends. "Clint! Come, brother, and rejoice in the break before our class starts with your friends! Come seat yourself with us and we will share much laughter!" Clint looked up from his mug and wandered over to his usual table with his friends. As usual, Steve and Tony were sitting together and Tony was both talking science with Bruce and flirting with Steve, the latter recognizable by the faint blush across the blonde's cheeks. Thor, satisfied with Clint's joining them, had moved on to his loner brother, Loki, who always insisted on sitting in the corner alone. Clint didn't understand why Thor didn't just leave the kid alone; he obviously didn't want to sit with them. The only reason they actually hung out with Loki was because they didn't want to make Thor feel bad. Clint shook his head as he watched yet another failed attempt at getting the pale 15-year-old to sit with them and opted to instead stand and talk to Natasha, who had just walked in. However, before he got the chance to say a word, he was silenced by Coulson. "Alright, class, take your seats. Today I'd like to talk to all of you about the Avengers Initiative."