I AM UPLOADING SOMETHING THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CASTLE WHAAAA. I wrote this like a year and a half ago and have debated time and time again on whether to actually publish it, and people have convinced me cough Stefannie cough Vallie cough to make it viewable to all (sobs). I have never written Clint/Nat before, and I am absolutely terrified of letting this be seen by you all so I'm gonna run off and watch Children in Need and ignore you all. No, I won't, I'll be staring at my phone waiting for e-mails. Whatever, I'm blabbering. Um, yes. Anyway. Enjoy?
(I'm putting this as a T, just for vague sex references and also some bad language, so if that's not your thing then feel free to not read).
Germany. China. England. France. Russia. Constantly moving. Constant distractions. Trying to forget that the faces of the dead haunt them in their sleep, that their screams leave them shaking and in a cold sweat. It's not a relationship. If they were asked they'd both say they were single. They're in love and not in love, and fucking for the sake of fucking. Or trying to distract each other from the voices inside their own heads.
They end up in a tiny village in Spain. It's surprising for them. Every time they've stayed in a place this small they've been watched from the sidelines, silence descending every time they walk into a room. Heads turning to watch them. They're not trusted. They never have been. They've never stayed long. But here, here they're welcomed with smiles and open arms. They rent a tiny flat above a bakery, the smell of freshly baked bread a permanent fixture. It seeps out of the furniture, and it's hard not to keep breathing the smell in. It's fresh and new and pure and helps them forget. With wide open windows, sun beams and dust particles, it's hard to remember why they're running. They spend two weeks walking the sun soaked streets, and it's the longest they've ever stayed in one place. They feel almost like tourists. No suits. No bow and arrows. No guns. Just sunglasses, dresses and a phrase book that they throw away after a week because they both have an aptitude for languages and they don't really need it any more. For once there's no sense of impending doom, no cross hairs on their backs, no constant looking over their shoulders. It's the first time either of them can really remember feeling this at home.
Of course, they don't stay. They can't. They want to. But she insists that they leave when he dreams of the village on fire, of children crying out for lost parents, everybody shouting and screaming and it's harsh to his eyes. Blood running down the drains, the crackle of fire threatening to overtake everything. Bodies are everywhere, lifeless eyes turned towards him. Staring. Blaming. Your fault, it's all your fault. He can hear the whispers in the air. He wakes with vomit in his throat.
She sits with him as he leans over the toilet, the porcelain cool against his forehead as he tries to reign in his emotions. Her head on his shoulder, eyes closed, hand on the opposite shoulder, fingers making random patterns on his skin. Afterwards she pulls him into the bathtub and it's a tight fit, but it works. She scrubs at his skin until it's red and raw. It helps for a short time. Pretending that the blood on their hands has been washed away. Their ledgers clean, no longer stained with red. She says they have to go.
He sighs. He knew it wouldn't last. The peace and the quiet, it was all too good to be true. They'd stayed too long as it was. And they don't waste time. They're packed up and gone in an hour, the windows closed, the bed stripped. They argue over whether to leave a note, but in the end decide against it. Too personal.
And then it's Peru. India. Canada. So many countries, so many places, hotels, faces. They lose count. They feel constantly tired. In a way it helps, stops them concentrating on things they shouldn't be concentrating on. Arrive at a hotel, collapse into bed. Sleep. Repeat. It feels like a new country every day. Sometimes it is. They catch sight of people they may know, get paranoid. Pack up and go.
Something draws them back to Spain. An unspoken agreement between the two of them to go back. The village is just as they left it. The children are wiser, the adults older, but everyone's just as welcoming. The houses are just as small. The cobbled streets still as warm. The flat is just the same. The wooden furniture, the tiny kitchen, the bathtub that's barely big enough for one, let alone two. No signs of fire, no deaths. It's easier to breathe again.
"Do you ever regret doing this?" he asks one morning, squeezing a flannel over her back.
"Doing what? Killing people or running around the world with you?"
"I dunno." he shrugged, pushing her hair over her shoulder. "Both, I guess."
"Killing people... yeah. Every day. Being with you... maybe every other day." she laughed, her cheek pressed against her knee.
"Charming. You're sleeping in the bathtub tonight."
"What about you?"
"I don't regret being able to save the world. And I don't regret seeing the world with you. The nightmares... yeah, I regret those. But it's easier here. It's... peaceful."
"You ever think about a normal life?"
"Normal life? Like?"
"You know, marriage. Two point five kids. A dog and a white picket fence."
He laughed. "Sounds boring."
"But do you?"
"Sometimes I wonder what it would be like. Don't know who would want to marry me, though. I'm not exactly the most emotionally stable of people."
"But if you hadn't become a master assassin? What about that? What do you think you'd be doing?"
"Nat... where's all this coming from?"
"I don't know. Just... being here. It makes me feel at home, you know? I mean, you see all these families with these kids and... just makes you wonder what life could have been like if you'd chosen a different path."
"We'd have never met each other."
"No, no we wouldn't." she sighs, pushing away from him. "But we wouldn't have known better."
He leans back against the edge of the tub, sighing. He hates this. He doesn't watch as she stands, the water dripping down her legs. Or as she steps out onto the floor, reaching for the soft towels their landlady leaves them. He listens to the sound of her getting dressed, the front door closing before standing himself. It's best to leave her to it when she's like this. They're both good at distracting each other with mouths and hands and fingers, but when it comes to actually talking about their feelings... well, they're both a little screwed. Something like this will happen and they'll ignore it. They'll always ignore it in favour of being wrapped up around each other in cotton sheets. It works, for now. But he doesn't want to think about what's going to happen when it doesn't.
Their landlady's son gets married. They are, of course, invited to both ceremony and reception. She laughs at him in his suit and tie, and it makes him want to forget the wedding and just stay with her in bed all day. But that would be revealing his not so secret feelings, and he's not going to do that. Doesn't want to ruin what they already have. But it's hard, especially when she comes out of the bathroom in that dress. It's not the first time she's worn a dress, and it won't be the last, but it's not her kind of dress. Short, black and a lot of leg. That's what does it for her. But this... this is more like a sundress. And it completely transforms her. She looks completely different, acts completely different. Less like Black Widow, more like Natasha Romanoff. Which is ridiculous, because she hasn't been Black Widow since New York. They've had no need to suit up. But he's having a hard time seeing the master assassin underneath the laughing, smiling, sunkissed red head. Sometimes he wonders what would have happened if they'd met under more normal circumstances. Where they'd be. If they'd be anywhere.
"You want to dance?" she asks him, her feet clad in nude stockings playing with the bare skin at his leg.
"The last time we danced... properly danced..." he adds, after seeing her self-satisfied smirk.
"On top of the Eiffel tower at New Years." she hummed, appreciatively, standing up. "That was a hell of a night."
"Yeah, yeah it was."
"So, are you dancing or am I going to have to flirt with the best man?"
He laughs, reaches for her shoes. "You're not flirting with the best man while I'm watching." he reaches for her hand, pulling her in the opposite direction of the dance floor. "But I'm not dancing in front of all those people."
She pressed herself against his back, chin resting on his shoulder. "Why, Clint? Your dance moves not good enough?"
"You know my dance moves are more than good enough."
"Is that a euphemism?"
"If you want it to be."
She moves, moving around him so he has to stop. "But in all serious, why are we going outside?"
"There's too many people in there."
"Too many people for what?"
"Talking."
"Talking? About what?"
"About us. What we're doing."
"We're travelling the world. That's what we're doing."
He steps out of the village hall, hands her her shoes. The night was clear, the stars were shining and fairy lights had been hung in nearby trees. He'd never get married himself. He's too much of a flight risk to ever imagine himself properly tied down to someone, even if it was Nat. He loves her, but he's not marrying her. He doesn't think she'd want to either. Marriage is not for them. He pulls her onto the village green, aware that she's watching him out of narrow eyes. She knows they don't do this. He should be sticking to tradition, going off on his own until his mind is clearer, or making some speedy exit to the flat and getting off onto her until he forgets everything in a blissful state of her, soft curves and hard lines and the heat of her infused into every fibre of his being.
"I don't mean what we're doing. I mean what we're doing."
"We're... I don't know, Clint. You've lost me."
He pulled her flush against him, one arm around her waist. "I don't want I don't know."
She pulls away slightly, and he can see the frown in the moonlight. "Clint?"
"We could stay here, you know." he carries on, ignoring her obvious confusion.
"I thought we were... until we were needed again..."
"No, I mean stay here. Screw Fury, and S.H.I.E.L.D. Screw the Avengers Initiative. I mean it. We could."
"You know Fury will already know where we are..."
"I don't care, Tash. I really don't care anymore. I'm fed up of it. I don't want to be scared of going to sleep anymore because I'll be plagued by nightmares. I'm fed up of never staying in the same place. Of never staying in contact with people because I have no idea where I'll be next. I don't want to keep waking up each morning wondering if today is the day I'm going to die."
"How much have you had to drink?"
"I haven't. And I'm serious here, Nat."
"Okay. Serious. I got it."
"I don't know what we have here, Nat. I really don't."
"What you're saying is... you want... us?"
"I want... I want to walk down the street holding your hand, and whisper stupid things in your ear that makes you laugh. I want us to talk. About everything. We're fucked up, and I know, and we don't talk. And we should. I want to pin you to the bed because I love you and you love me and not because we're trying to distract ourselves from the voices inside our own heads."
"You love me." she says, so ridiculously quiet that he's really not sure she said anything at all.
"I... it's... yes. Yes, I love you, Nat. And I'm fed up of pretending otherwise. I just want you and me."
"What if I want to go back?"
"Do you?"
"I... it helps, Clint. You know it does. All the things I've done... we've done. The people we've killed. Doing this, saving the world, the Avengers. Don't you think it helps? Makes it better?"
"It doesn't get rid of the red, Tash. No matter how hard you wish... it's still there." he tips his head foreward, forehead against her crown. "But if you want to go back, then I'm coming with you."
"You don't have to."
He huffed. "Yes, I do. Like I'm going to let you go walk onto a battle field on your own. I'm not having Fury, or another one of the goon squad turning up on our doorstep and telling me you're dead. If you're going to die, then I'm being there. End of."
"No one's going to die. How often do you expect the world to be invaded by aliens?"
"Not just aliens. They're not the only trouble in the world. We're the only two mortals, Tash. Starks got his suit, Banners invincible, Rogers regenerates and Thors a demigod. We're just humans. One of these days we're going to realise it."
"But we're alive now, Clint. Just focus on that."
"But what's the point in being alive if you can't enjoy it? I can't enjoy it. Not when I'm expecting to be called in to fight for my life every other day."
"You really want to do this?"
"Yes."
"Fine. Okay. If Fury comes knocking then we'll give him the finger."
"Nat-"
"No, shush. We'll find a way. It'll work." She wrapped her own arms around his waist, breathing in against his collar bone. Even without his suit, he still managed to smell like leather. "We'll make it work. But this isn't what I'd call dancing, and you said you were going to dance with me."
He laughed, reaching behind him to pull one of her hands into his. "Let's go home and dance."
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