"C'mere. Let me."
"What do you know about hair, Clint?"
"I know everything... Everything, but your birthdate."
"And you never will."
There was a mild pause while Clint watched her struggle with the mess that was her hair. The rollers where old school in style, she was already vexed by the heat of the room, and they were rapidly tangling under her furiously tugging fingers.
"Let me do it, you're making it worse."
"I won't end up with stupid spikes like yours, will I?"
"My hair is not stupid, it's practical."
"You've been wearing that same stupid hair style all the time I've known you."
"Just- c'mere, would you?"
He opened his knees and nodded to the spot in front of him. In nothing but a silky, pale pink slip, Natasha took her infuriating curlers and slumped in front of him, defeated. She brought her knees up to her chin and hugged them tightly to her chest, sighing as much as her restricted airways would allow.
Clint carefully untangled the first roller from the bird's nest that was her hair, paying particular attention to if it pulled too much or if she made any noise of complaint. She didn't- but that didn't mean he wasn't hurting her.
"You're not keen on the mission, huh."
"It's a stupid mission."
"'Stupid' seems to be your word of the day." He paused, extracted another roller, using his powers for good, not evil. "Talk to me, Tash."
"I just- hate being a woman, sometimes." she said it so loftily, but under that there was the rehashed echo of a woman finally admitting something out loud.
"Yeah." he nodded along, finally removing the barrel from her hair, which sprung into a curl. "I hate you being a woman, sometimes, too."
"No you don't." she scoffed.
"Prove it."
"Need I remind you of the lace incident?"
"I am a man. I am trained to use my eyes to the best of human capabilities. I can't help it if my dick jumps to attention when you're in lace. Which is reason one of why I hate you bein' a woman." he tipped her head back, looked her seriously in the eye as his hands carefully framed her face. "There are many reasons, but lace isn't one of them. You should definitely wear more lace."
"Ha ha." she said it with all the enthusiasm of a man bracing the electric chair.
"If I commission a cat suit made outta lace from Phil, d'you think he'd give it to me?"
"I think he'd give it to you in your measurements, and ask no questions."
He chuckled, fixed her head back where he wanted it, and proceeded to unravel nearly every curler and subsequent curl from the back of her head. He, slightly injured from a previous mission, grunted when he stretched too far ahead, and she didn't leave it unnoticed.
"Your ribs?"
"Mm." he rubbed them furiously. "It's nothin'."
"I'll move." because if she was going to be honest, she liked that he was tending to her hair. She hated rollers, but they were effective to tame her curls into a more elegant mess. An elegant mess was needed. She got up on her knees, and turned around, kneeling between his thighs.
His eyebrows shot up so fast they nearly flew off his face. She just smiled a sweet smile.
"Indulging in those fantasies, Clinton?"
"Woman, you have no idea."
He brought his hands back up to her hair and removed curler after curler, letting the curls spring free, smoothing them into a neater position when he was done. Oddly enough, she let him, soothed under the repetition and gentleness of his movements. He could see the tension in her shoulders, but at least she'd stopped glaring at everything.
"There. Better." he was triumphant. They'd struggled a little, but in the end, victory was his. He was internally fistpumping. "Now, tell me about this mission."
"What did Coulson tell you?"
"He told me to keep an eye on you. Same as always. Why is this any different?"
She just blinked at him.
"What else, did he tell you about this mission?"
"We should expect to stay under cover for anywhere from a week to a month, depending on how far ingrained you were into his world. If you couldn't get the information out of him in that time without being sussed out as an agent, then we'd pull you out and send you back in at a later stage."
"But with more violence."
"Pretty much." he surveyed the odd look on her face. Like she wanted to tell him something. "Tash?"
"And did he mention any of the methods I'd be using to coerce information?" she raised her brows slightly. "Did you maybe wonder why I was going in clean? No ear piece, no guns?"
Something in his mind clicked.
"Oh. It's one of those, missions."
"Yes."
"A sexy mission."
"Yes."
"You've gotta... You've gotta sleep with him for a month?"
"Provided he doesn't buy my stupid whore act and tell me what I need to know as soon as possible, yes."
"Coulson just expected me to watch?"
"I think he expected you to figure it out at one stage or rather."
"I would've shot him if I hadn't known."
"Which is why I briefly entertained the idea of not mentioning it."
He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. He knew a few other spies - vaguely, as was their M.O, and he knew they slept with people on occasion to get the job done, but he still didn't like it. And he had to watch.
"But he's ugly."
Her smile was wide.
"I know."
"And kinda chubby."
"Would you feel better if he was more attractive?"
"Well, I've gotta watch, don't I?"
She smacked the inside of his thigh. Hard.
He cringed.
"Easy on the goods."
"Not your goods that are going to be under the limelight."
He scowled.
"How come you sleep with him, but not me?"
"He's got valuable information. And Coulson told me to."
"So if I get Coulson to tell you to sleep with me-?"
"No."
"Aren't I pretty 'nuff for you, Tash?"
"Not particularly." she said, and chuckled in her low, husky way. "Only you could make me feel better about this. I've done it before, but it doesn't mean I look forward to it."
"You know Coulson would let you outta it if you asked him." he said, quite sincerely.
"Not without a fight. Besides, the guy's been jerking off to anime for the last two years. It won't last long."
"I doubt any one ever lasts long around you."
"You managed."
"That's because I'm a champion. I told you I'd get into you one day. I put a bet down that says I last all of half an hour."
"You sound oddly proud of that."
"Because I doubt anyone lasts much longer 'n' that."
"Hm." was all she said, and ran a hand over her hair. "Not bad, Barton."
"I'm not a bad guy, really."
"Those of us privy to your movie preferences would beg to differ."
"Don't start. They're classics."
She closed her eyes briefly, letting the soft powdered lids flutter shut as she shook her head.
"They aren't classics," she opened her eyes, cocked her head, making the curls swing prettily to the side. "They're fossils."
"You didn't have any movies of your own." Was his only defense.
"You've watched them the last three missions we've been on."
"I just left them in my bag, s'not like I actively plan to watch movies with you."
"Well pack more. I'm starting to quote it verbatim."
"That's the way I like it." he grinned.
"I am beginning to wonder if you don't harbor a very real man-crush on young, mullet, Mel Gibson."
"That accent turns me on. Can't help myself."
"I thought lace and a riding crop did that?" though she said it with an Australian accent.
He groaned, let his head tip back to lean on the back of the couch for support. A part of him was oddly turned on by Tash with an accent that suited her husky, come-hither voice, but another part of him was on red-alert – SHE IS GOING TO USE THIS AGAINST YOU FOREVER, BARTON, MAKE AN EFFORT.
"God, you can be cruel."
"Why are you still surprised?"
"Honestly? I'm not. But seriously." He lowered his voice, tilted his head back to meet her eyes, almost conspiratorially. "Want me to shoot this guy any way?"
"You're playing the knight card."
"Yeah, you're right, I'll just shut up and watch him get sweaty, wiggle on top of you. Of course I'm playing the knight in shiny armor card, I don't wanna do this any more'n you do, kid."
"Did you just call me 'kid'?"
"Sorry, Tash. Habit."
"You're insufferable."
"Do you want me to shoot him?"
"Yes, I want you to shoot him. Will I let it happen? No. The fastest and safest way to get what we need is to get him to talk of his own free will. I really don't want to have to come back to this shit hole anyway, so we get in-"
"He gets 'in'. I get nothin'."
"-we get out, we take the information in to Fury and be done with it. Clint." Her hands settled on his knees. "It's not a problem. It's a hazard of the job."
He may or may not have been less excited than she was, just gauging by the droop of his lower lip. He huffed, absent mindedly rubbed his rib cage at the twinge in his muscles and settled back deeper into the chair. She just waited for him to come around to the idea, her hands on his legs, feeling the pulse of blood in his major arteries.
"I'll wear something pretty for you." she said, and cocked a brow at the sinful laugh that burst out of his mouth.
"Wear the white corset."
She just sighed, rolled her eyes. Of course, he picked the single article of lingerie that she refused to wear. Of course he did.
"I'll see what I can do." she was endlessly amused at his darkening chuckle. It took him a moment, before he propped his chin up on his hand and scrubbed his jaw, coming back into his more serious state of mind. He looked like he was planning something. She tipped her head, but he fixed her hair, and tipped it back for her.
"I've gotta watch?"
"Any other time you'd be happy to. I can't help but think it's because he's on the ugly side of life."
"And the hairy side. He looks like a goddamn grizzly bear."
"Thank you, for putting that image in my mind."
She scowled; he smirked. Then his eyes flashed and he pulled a face.
"I don't want to watch. It's weird."
"You're my eyes, Barton." it got unexpectedly intimate up in that hotel room, all of a sudden, between his legs, with his hands fretting over where her hair fell. Diffuse the situation, Romanova. "Because god knows I'm getting plastered before I go anywhere near him."
His grin was majorly devious. He reached out and smoothed her hair into place again, paying particular attention to the way it framed her face.
"Well. I'll see what I can do, but can I pick out your panties again?"
He'd just given her the night's first kiss, copious amounts of saliva and teeth. She had blood on her mouth from where he clicked against her and his hands were sweaty. Also, his facial hair burned upon impact with her face.
She was teetering dangerously to one side - she'd nearly drank the whole damn bar, but this guy wasn't picking up what she was putting down until she had drank half her body weight in vodka and could believe she was hot for him. He tucked her under his arm and 'helped' her to his room, fumbling with the catches on her bra before giving up, just letting the cups remain on.
There was no foreplay. he was too nervous to even get it up, so she waited, bored, running her hand over her hair where he'd messed it up with grabby hands. She couldn't help but like it just a little more than usual, though she refused to acknowledge that it was because Clint had done it up for her, just because it looked rather nice.
Absently, she looked out of the window, her trained eyes finding the wink of his sight lens with ease. She roll her eyes at him, and the lens winked again.
"So," he said, and when she looked at him she saw a safe balanced precariously behind him. "Are you read for me, baby?"
The tinkle of broken glass and the swift Shht! should have alerted her as to what had just happened, but as aforementioned, she was very, very drunk. As it was, one minute he was standing, then he was face down, having dropped like a tree. She cocked her head, saw the (suspiciously arrow shaped) dart hanging out of his neck, and plucked it from his skin. She shook her head, very amused, and went about breaking into the safe.
"Do you want to explain to me why there were traces of an inhibiting agent associated with S.H.I.E.L.D on it's way out of our mark's body?"
Coulson. Goddamnit. She was nowhere near sober enough for this.
"No idea what you're talkin' about." said Clint, too damn happy. "You wanna frosted doughnut?"
There was a pause, then the crinkle as a packet was tossed to the suited handler. The packet was tucked into his pocket and he gave the super marksman a beady eyeballing he wouldn't soon forget.
"Why don't you grab Nat's coffee, huh? She's out of it. She'll be out of it for about half the day. C'mon Phil, why is it always doom and gloom every time I see you? Take a load off, hang out with me."
"Or why the bruising around his neck suggested that the inhibitor was delivered at high speed from a distance roughly in the area of where you typically 'hang out' from?"
"That's a coincidence."
"If you couldn't handle the mission-"
"I just have no idea where that dart could've come from, or why it was a dart. It should've been something way more toxic. Jus' sayin', if I was the kind of guy to eff up my missions on my whims-"
"Barton, you are exactly that kind of guy."
"-then I mean, I wouldn't have used a knock-out arrow from a plethora of much more lethal arrows. I'd definitely choose something with more pizzazz. Definitely something that'd come back to me and not leave a trace. Something like, say, a boomerang arrow. Which I have. Along with the ten different other kinds of tipped and dissolving arrows. But I'm not that stupid."
There was a silence while Phil processed that. Then the crinkle of his powdered doughnut as he pulled it out of his pocket and unwrapped it.
"You have a debriefing tomorrow at six o'clock sharp. I expect the both of you there."
"Will do. Good to see ya Phil. Enjoy my doughnuts."
"Stop buttering me up," replied the Agent through a mouthful of powdery goodness. "You're not off the hook." the door closed with a snap behind him.
Natasha was on the verge of going back to sleeping when Clint threw himself dramatically over the backs of her legs, pressing a warm cup of coffee against her arm. She mumbled something morbid in Russian, and he grinned, she could feel it directed at the side of her face. She accepted the caffeine sipped it, groaned and pushed it back at him, burying her face in pillows. She nearly elbowed him in the skull when he made himself comfortable, cuddled up next to her side, his cold feet pressing against her legs and breath tickling the back of her neck.
"Go away."
"I wanna nap. I've been up since you starting throwing up at four."
She mourned her quiet morning.
"Talk too much."
"Oh. I see. So if'm quiet I get to snuggle with you?"
She turned her head and gave him the single most dangerous glare she'd ever given anyone in her life.
"I spiked his doughnuts with enough laxatives to have that debriefing put off until Tuesday."
She blinked, processed that. Tuesday... that was two days from now. Two days from now... She could sleep in.
"Hmph." she tucked back into the curve of his body and shut her eyes against the morning. He put an arm around her waist and hunkered in, his stomach tensing from laughter. "If you ever tell any one, Barton... I'll cut out your tongue."
"You'd have to catch me first."