UPDATE 3/27/13: The sequel is in-progress. Check it out on my page if you're interested!
So I was exploring tumblr one day and I came across this lovely post by lettiebobettie. ( post/24790338444/you-know-nat-has-naturally-red-hair-and-she)
It immediately sparked my interest and I had so many feels that I just had to write about it.
I own nothing except for most of the words here. Lettiebobettie is the original creator and I give her full credit. I don't own Black Widow or Hawkeye, either, which makes me very sad.
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You know, Nat has naturally red hair.
She and I were out on one of our first missions in Saudi Arabia. We had just finished dealing with a raging mad scientist living underground in his laboratory and we were walking toward the place where a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopter was going to pick us up.
As we were leaving, a bomb went off just inside. If we hadn't been where we were when it happened, we would have been blown to bits. Acting on instinct, I grabbed a hold of Tasha and covered her body with mine. The force of the explosion sent us flying forward about ten feet, but I held onto her for dear life. Thinking back on it now, I think I did it for her life, not mine.
When the rubble and sand stopped falling was when I finally let go of her. I took a moment to assess the situation and check the damage. My knuckles were bloodied and I was covered in bruises and smaller scratches, but that was it. She had a cut on her forehead that was bleeding, bruises, and a few scratches here and there, but nothing too serious.
I looked around us and saw a burnt white lab coat under a boulder a few feet away. I crawled over to it and ripped a non-burnt piece off of it. I crawled back to Nat and lifted the cloth to her forehead and my free hand on the back of her head. Neither of us were worried about blood borne diseases. We had gotten used to each other's blood, and S.H.I.E.L.D. was always giving us new vaccines to prevent anything. Her green eyes watched the sky for the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicopter as I wiped away the blood that had begun to trickle down the side of her face.
When most of the bleeding stopped, I took the bloodied fabric away. I kept my other hand on her head, playing with her soft red hair between my fingers. I had never really given much thought to the color of her hair, except that it was distractingly vibrant and it could give away our location. Of course, it never did. After all, she is the Black Widow. She never gets caught.
I looked at her face as I had done many times before, memorizing it. For the first time, I really paid attention to the color of her eyebrows and eyelashes. They were just as red as her hair.
"The helicopter is here," She said as she stood up, "C'mon, we'd better hurry." She extended a hand to me, which I graciously accepted.
'Huh. So she really is a natural red head…' I smiled to myself.
And she likes the snow, but she loves the rain.
Iceland's got some pretty snowy winters. Oh yeah, we were totally warm when we were all bundled up in some nice skin tight camouflage uniforms. Not.
We were scaling a mountain during a blizzard when it started to get intense.
"Tasha, we need to find a cave or something and wait out the storm." I shouted to her over the roar of the wind.
"We've got twenty-four hours to complete this mission, Barton. We don't have time to wait it out. We don't even know how long it'd take to infiltrate the place. It could take the rest of the twenty-four hours we have!" she called back.
"Tasha, think about it logically. It's getting really hard to see out here and I don't know about you, but I'm freezing my ass off, and I know you are, too."
"No, Barton. If you keep complaining I'm going to drop you right here and now. You know how I feel about complaining, especially when it's coming from a grown man."
I grumbled under my breath, but we continued on.
Finally, we reached the mountain peak.
"Where do you suppose this place is? Fury said it was-"
"Right there." She pointed to a patch of snow.
"Why the hell do you think it's there, Nat? That's a pile of snow!"
She turned to me, "I was trained in the Red Room when I was a child. They taught me almost everything I know, even how to find something in the snow."
I knew she didn't like talking about the Red Room, even if it was just a few words, "All right, I'll take your word for it." It's no use arguing with her.
. . .
We stood on the large balcony that overlooked half of Iceland.
"It's beautiful, isn't it, Clint?"
"It is. It's like a completely different world out there."
"It's so pure, innocent, untouched…"
"A rare treasure."
"There's one reason why I like the snow. You know what that is?" she turned her gaze to me.
I shook my head.
"The shape of the flakes. They're so intricate and detailed. I'll never understand how they're made." She held out a hand and let a few flakes fall onto it.
"I have a theory. There are little tiny hawks up there in the clouds," I pointed to the gray sky above us, "They have little magical powers that allow them to create such detail in one snowflake."
She laughed, "You're so full of shit." She couldn't hold back the smile that made its home on her lips.
"You wound me, madam," I said with mock hurt, "It's true, though. I'll always believe it, even if you don't."
"Let's contact S.H.I.E.L.D. now. You were right, it is freezing here. Thankfully the storm died down while we were in there."
I nodded and spoke into the comm link in my uniform, "Mission completed. Black Widow and Hawkeye requesting early pickup." Someone, probably Hill, responded with an OK.
As we were making our way back up to the mountain peak, Tasha told me, "It's too bad raindrops don't have design on them. I love the rain more than anything."
She likes to lay in bed on rainy mornings.
She lay next to me on my hospital bed, holding my hand in both of hers. She rested her head on my shoulders as she looked out the window at the raindrops running down the glass.
She felt warm against me as I gained consciousness. I knew that she could tell when she squeezed my hand. I wasn't ready for this moment we were sharing to end yet. She sensed it, and didn't leave my side.
"Clint," she whispered, "It's raining."
She would always tell me when it was, even if I already knew.
"Do the raindrops have designs on them?" I asked, my voice hoarse.
"Mmhmm," she responded. I felt her smile against my shoulder.
"I told you so." I said, finally being able to say that.
She has this spot on the back of her neck she likes me to rub.
"Clint, are you awake?" came a soft voice from my doorway.
"Now I am…" I said groggily, "What's up?"
"This is… embarrassing… but I can't sleep."
"And?" I asked, confused and out of it.
"Can I sleep in your bed tonight?"
"What?" I said, wondering if I had heard her correctly.
"You heard me, numb nuts. Move over." She commanded as she made her way over to my bed.
"Uh- alright." I complied. I didn't have much of a choice, seeing as if I refused, she would move me herself, and I knew that she was more than capable of doing it.
I lifted up the covers, "Come on in."
She crawled in next to me and curled up into a ball, facing me. Once she was settled, she set her green eyes on me. I scooted closer to her and put a hand to her face. She smiled into my hand as I made small circles on her cheek with my thumb, her eyes never leaving mine. I pushed a stray curl out of her face and moved my hand to the back of her neck. Her eyes started to droop when I started to rub a certain spot on her neck.
Soon enough, she was asleep. I kept my hand on her neck, and with one final look at her sleeping face, I also drifted back off to sleep.
And she particularly enjoys candle light.
We were sneaking through an old castle in Kasteel Well, The Netherlands one night. It was an easy mission: Some idiots were smuggling some of Stark's weapons for Odin knows why.
Gun and Bow at the ready, we hid behind a large pillar just outside the room we heard noises coming from.
"Ready? Three…"
"Two…"
"One." We said in unison. We burst through the door, probably scaring the shit out of the guys inside. One of them was so startled that he accidentally pulled the trigger on a huge ass gun he was holding and hit the guy across from him square in the forehead.
I let one of my arrows go- not an exploding one, just a regular one cause I didn't want to waste my awesome arrowheads on amateurs like them. It hit one and sent him crashing to the ground. I got another arrow ready, then realized that there were none left standing.
"Couldn't let me get two of 'em? Wow, you're selfish." I said playfully as Tasha put her guns back into her holster. She smirked at me, "Hawkeye and Black Widow reporting in. It's clear, you can send them in." she said into the comm link at her shoulder.
Within two minutes, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were collecting Stark's weapons and carrying them to the helicopter.
We took our time walking to the helicopter, finally getting a chance to look at the castle.
"You don't see this every day, now do ya, Tasha?"
"You sure don't. Oh, look at all those candles! She walked over to a fallen candle light chandelier, "I wonder how old they are?" She said, pulling one out of its holder.
"Why are you taking one?"
She picked up a candle, "It's a candle from the Netherlands," she said as if it was the most uncomplicated thing in the world, "I'm going to add it to my collection. Come on, let's go debrief Fury."
And she likes to dance, but not when anyone is watching.
I went food shopping one day. I never do that. When I say never, I mean never. Tasha always goes because she tells me that I don't know what kind of food to get. She once told me that if I even went food shopping, I'd come back with three hundred dollars worth of coffee and cookies. I don't see why she gets to mad about that. I mean, she goes food shopping and comes back with three hundred pounds of coffee. I swear, her mind works in strange ways.
Anyway, she had written me an extremely detailed list of each type of food to get. I'll never admit it to her, but I'm extremely grateful that she did. It was a lot easier to choose the correct cereal when she wrote that it's "The family size box of Frosted Mini-Wheat Cinnamon Streusel – dark green strip on top of front of box with the Mini Wheats mascot on the left and 'excellent source of fiber' written on the right. Kellogg's is written under the mascot. Frosted is written in an arc above 'Mini Wheats' and 'Cinnamon streusel' written underneath on a brown banner." If she hadn't, she would have literally killed me for bringing back a completely different cereal.
I had finally finished shopping after three hours. It took half an hour to check out and five minutes to unload it all from my car and bring it up to our suite at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters and another half an hour to figure out where it was all supposed to be stored.
Naturally, this wore me out. I started up the coffee maker and set out two mugs. I took off my shoes and carried them up to my room, and when I got to the top of the stairs I was surprised to see my door open down the hall. Nat wasn't known for going into my room, nor was S.H.I.E.L.D known for letting an intruder within 100 miles of the Headquarters. Then I thought that I might not have closed it before I left, which was odd because I distinctly remembered doing so.
I stepped quietly across the hallway and when I was halfway down the hallway, I heard music coming from my room. It was just loud enough for me to hear that it was Tasha's favorite Russian song. My shoulders relaxed as I breathed a sigh of relief. I walked to my room but stopped as soon as I saw something I never thought I would see.
Natasha was dancing.
Not only was she dancing, but she wasn't listening to the song. She was singing it.
Not only was she singing, but she was singing and dancing while wearing one of my black t-shirts.
I leaned against the doorframe, taking in the sight because it might not last long.
She twirled and lunged and grand jeté'd for ten minutes and did all sorts of moves that I couldn't even begin to name. It was really an unforgettably beautiful scene.
Sadly, the scene ended as she opened her eyes as she twirled and saw me standing at the door. She stumbled a bit and gained her composure, putting on her best Black Widow poker face.
"How long were you standing there, Barton?" she said sternly as she moved a stray curl that had come out of her bun out of her face.
"Long enough," I paused, "Your voice is lovely."
"Thank you." She said professionally, "Did you get the food?" she asked, attempting to change the subject.
"Yep. I've got some coffee that's probably finished by now. Want a cup?" I offered.
A smile finally crossed her face, "Is that even a question? I'm surprised at you, Barton." She winked as she passed me.
And when she is feeling tired and down, she likes to lay her head in my lap.
We had just cleared out an entire orphanage in Washington DC. Damn that was tough. I swear, if Baby and Toddler Carrying was an Olympic sport, Natasha and I would have tied for the gold. I needed to give her a quick lesson on how to properly hold a baby before we did, even though we didn't actually end up carrying them the proper way. But hey, what could we do? We couldn't just let them die from inhaling the Hydrogen Cyanide that was making its way around the air vents.
It sure took a toll on Tasha. We had to run in with gas masks on after we got the kids out to find the jackass who had decided it would be funny to try to kill off an orphanage. She wasn't used to kids and didn't know why they were all crying and wanting her to hold them. I had told her that she had saved them and they had developed feelings for her, like she was almost their mother. Almost. She had scoffed at the idea, but I could tell that she felt the slightest sliver of warmth and love inside.
We had decided that we would walk around DC and see the sights. We had been here before on S.H.I.E.L.D. missions, mostly to protect the president or some under cover things.
We took a walk through the International Spy Museum, laughing at all the stupid tricks and the false ways to spy so they could cover up how it really happened. Once or twice there was something that was exactly right, but I've forgotten what they are by now.
When it got dark, we went to this frozen yogurt joint called Zinga.
"What's up with all these frozen yogurt places nowadays? I see them everywhere. There's Pinkberry, Zinga, Frozen Fantasy, Sweet Frog…"
"I'm right there with ya, Clint. I get that it's healthier than ice cream, but why all the different ones? They could have just let them all be Zingas or something and call it a day."
"Do you suppose they're all run by the same company? You know, I bet that's what it is. They're brainwashing us, Tasha. I just know it!"
"Oh shut up and eat your frozen cow milk, you loon." She said playfully.
I responded in the only appropriate way possible: by scooping some of my yogurt with my finger and wiping it on her nose.
"Clint! You ass!" she laughed as she did the same.
"Oh you did not just." I said with dramatic attitude.
"Oh yes I did just." She responded with the same dramatic attitude.
"You're going to pay for that, Tasha!" I stood up and started to chase her around the Constitution Gardens.
Damn can that woman run. I finally spotted her in a tree, only because I had climbed one next to her.
"Found you!" I called out.
"Actually, I believe that I am the one who has found you."
. . .
We laid on the grass looking up at the sky.
She laid her head on my lap, "Clint?" she asked me softly.
"Yeah, Tasha?"
"Do you think I'll ever be able to have a child?"
This question struck me with surprise, "Why do you ask?" I asked as I ran my fingers through her hair.
"The kids today got me wondering what it's like to have a family. I've been an orphan for as long as I can remember, and to be honest, it sucks balls."
"Well yeah, unless you were neutered way back when. I'm pretty sure most women can have kids." I answered honestly.
"No, you idiot. I mean… if I ever had a baby, do you think I would make a good mother?"
I thought for a while, really thinking about her question.
"To be perfectly blunt, I think you would be suckish at it in the beginning. But you've gotta get used to it. I know that you're really harsh and strict, but you've got a soft side. I haven't seen much of it, and I don't know how big it is, but I know that if you gave it time, you would figure it out."
"So that's a yes?" she asked with hopeful eyes.
I smiled down at her, "It's most definitely a yes."
And she sings Russian songs, and I don't understand them but I still love to listen.
Natasha has always looked completely gorgeous in ball gowns. It's too bad she doesn't wear them more often. If I had a say in the way her Black Widow uniform was designed, I would have made it look like a ball gown. She would have killed me, though.
We were on an undercover mission in Germany acting as a wealthy English couple that was visiting for our five year anniversary, going by the names of Roger and Alicia Huberman. She had always told me that whenever we had to act like a married couple I would be too loving and doting. I guess it's true, because I know that if I were to ever marry her, I would treat her that way. I wouldn't dare tell her that, though.
"May I have this dance?" I asked her as I bowed slightly and extended my hand.
"Why, of course my darling." She placed her dainty hand in mine and I led her to the golden dance floor.
"You look simply ravishing tonight, my sweet." I whispered truthfully in her ear as we slow danced. She was wearing a floor length white dress that puffed out at the waist just where a thick gold ribbon wrapped around her. She wore a golden flower in her hair that glistened as we moved across the dance floor.
"I do it for you." She whispered back. I could be wrong, but I could have sworn that I heard just as much truth in her words as my words had.
"This song is very catchy, don't you agree?" I asked, staying in character.
"It is very soothing. I recognize the tune, don't you? I've played it on the piano often." By piano, she meant iPod, though she'll probably never know that I actually have heard her play it on the piano.
"I do, in fact. It's Nochen'ka by Tina Karol, one of your favorites, is it not?"
"It makes me so happy that you remember, darling. Would you like me to sing it to you?"
"I would love to." I said, pulling her close.
As she began to sing, I realized that this was the first time that she had actually offered for me to hear her sing. She had the most beautiful singing voice. She mostly ever sang in Russian, and I loved the way her accent would come back when she would sing.
I'll never understand most of the Russian language (as I find it to be very confusing), but always love to listen to her sing it.