He had the target in his sights, the perfect shot, and he lowered his bow. This woman, no, this girl. There was something about her. He told Coulson the next day he had missed. He was given a strange look and dismissed.
"Nat, we're just moving into the Tower, just throw your important shit into a duffel and let's go." Clint sighed, his partner of many years was a bit odd sometimes about certain things. He watched as she carefully packed her small bookshelf. She continued to ignore his comments, she was taking her time at this.
He had another half dozen more attempts, and each time he lowered his bow. Even as he watched her ruthlessly drop target after target. He suspected Coulson had caught on long ago, and Clint was a little bewildered that he was always sent out after her.
"Tasha, get your ass behind cover!" Clint all but shouted into his earpiece. He tried not to focus on the fact that their opponents since becoming Avengers were a lot less human and significantly less predictable.
The eighth time, he was waiting for her. She was a rogue now, the USSR having been disassembled during the past year. SHIELD had lost sight of her, and Clint had fervently hoped she was alive. He was almost gleeful when he was sent out after her.
"Natasha, I swear on Thor's honor if you die today I will hunt your ass down and find a way to bring you back, kicking and screaming if I have to." Clint snarled into his earpiece, digging alongside his team in the rubble of the building. "You could try." Came the weak response and Clint's knees nearly buckled with relief.
"I'm not here to hurt you." He started, hands held out in front of him in what he hoped was a non-threatening gesture. Her response was rapid fire Russian that Clint could barely translate. "I know who you are, what you can do, and I know for a fact you can understand and speak some English." He could speak Russian, nearly fluently, but he knew he had to drag her out somehow.
Clint stared at the exceptionally large box sitting in the living room on his floor. It was wrapped in, yes, sparkly purple wrapping paper. It was slightly taller than him, and Clint was extremely apprehensive about opening it. The tag said from Natasha, but he had no doubts about the original source of something this … large. He sighed and ripped the paper off, and after a few moments of consideration, he managed to get the box off. And staring him in the face was, yes, a life size, and perfectly accurate, statue of Legolas. "Natasha, I'm going to kill you!" He yelled, but his inner geek was secretly pleased.
"You need to move." She said in stilted English, and Clint shook his head. "No, we both know what you're here to do, and I'm here to stop you. And I will do what I have to if the situation calls for it." He answered her, indicating the bow slung over his back. "You've been watching me for years, if you had wanted me dead, I'd be dead." Her accent was thick, but he understood her words perfectly. Clint started, she'd known he was there? All these years? His opinion of her skills grew. "Is that what you want?" He asked her, curious. He wasn't prepared for the dead look he received and the slow nod. Fuck, she didn't even look twenty-one.
"Clint, I swear if you're just fucking around, I will end you." Her words were followed by a stern look. Five years as partners and whatever had started between them had grown to the point where it could no longer be ignored. He shook his head mutely and grabbed her hand. She ducked her head, a habit he had found meant she was trying to sort out her feelings. He leaned into closer to her, and was pleased when she rested her side against his chest. "Alright, we'll try this." She said softly, and Clint swore he had never been happier at anything else in his life.
"I'm not doing that, you don't deserve it, no matter what you think." He said softly, and her startled look threw him off for a moment. She looked so much thinner and slightly less put together, and he belatedly realized rogue just didn't suit her. A spark of an idea dawned on him. "Look, come with me. We can sort this mess out and maybe we can fix some of this, whatever was done to you." He waved a hand to signify what he was talking about. She frowned at him, as if trying to understand what he meant.
They'd been lovers for years before they moved into the Tower together, and they tried to keep the Avengers out of it. Not because of trust issues, mostly, but because it was habit. Neither were public people, and it didn't dawn on them to really tell the team. Tony found out first, walking in on their private time. He peered at Clint braiding Natasha's hair, peered at the serene look on Natasha's face, and his face as he figured out was something they both ended up in stiches over later. The rest of the team slowly figured out, and it worked surprisingly well. Natasha extended her small family to include the team and their respective others and for once, she was alright with it.
He let her work it out for herself, he wasn't going to push her into anything. But he all but beamed at the slow nod he got. "Coulson, I'm bringing her in." was all he said to his handler. He didn't reach out and touch her, he wasn't suicidal, but she followed him mutely back to the pick-up point. He got royally reamed out by Fury over it, and he ordered her as his partner. He had never worked with one before, but there was something about the Black Widow that he was drawn to. And it was the start of a perfect and beautiful companionship.
Sometimes, as a personal joke to themselves, Clint would call Natasha Betty, and she would call him Al. That had been the first song he played her, to introduce her to 'proper American music' as he called it. Tony always looked at them sideways for it, as if he partially understood, but was still in the dark about most of it. That suited the two spies perfectly.