Promenade Position
By: Kuroi Atropos
Rating: Pretty safely K/Kid/G/Whatever
Pairings: None, but could be taken as Clint/Natasha
Warnings: None really
Summary: After the latest disaster, Clint and Natasha take a break from the clean up to enjoy some music and showcase some of their lesser known talents.
XxXxX
It was really just kind of bad luck how it happened, but since miraculously in the end nobody died Hawkeye figured the civilians could deal with being stuck for a bit.
A few buildings had collapsed at just the right angles, essentially creating this bowl/hole/crater type thing, with a group of civilians trapped dead center. The debris was too unstable to risk moving too many people, especially inexperienced ones, through it so a ground escape was out.
The leftover air displacement from the weapons the latest mad scientist had used were making it difficult for helicopters or quinjets to get in the area to start evacuating the trapped group. The last thing they needed with all the property damage around them was a helicopter crash. Even Tony and Rhodey weren't that stable in the air around the group. Meanwhile Thor was still a bit out of it from one of the blasts he'd taken and had already broken three cars, so it wasn't a good idea to let him near unarmored civilians.
Ultimately all that ruled out an air rescue also.
Which meant they were stuck there until either the air cleared up, or the relief teams managed to clear enough debris to make a safe path.
To top it off there were news cameras everywhere and somehow in spite of the metal and hunks of concrete blocking them in the civilians could still get signals and were posting to various media sites in frankly terrifying swiftness. This of course led to Cap, Clint, and Natasha being ordered to go through the debris along with a few of the steadier Agents and relief workers, and basically ferry a few supplies through to make the wait easier.
The people, which included a large batch of teens (apparently a school orchestra on their way to do a concert in the park type of thing), along with the normal lunch crowd of office workers and a gaggle of tourists, were mostly understanding, which made being constantly press-perfect less annoying. Clint figured that the multiple opportunities they were getting to geek over the super heroes and get 5 star meals paid for by Iron Man and delivered by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents in tac gear was helping a ton.
On this latest trip back, however, it was just Clint and Natasha with another load of gallon jugs of water to refill the "green" Stark Industries water bottles that Tony had also donated. As they approached the epicenter of the debris they heard music drifting up from the hole in the ground that the civilians were trapped in. It sounded, live? They looked at each other momentarily before moving forward to stand on the main beam of the section of scaffolding that they had been using as a staging point to repel down.
The group of kids had pulled out instruments and had maneuvered various pieces of debris to act as makeshift stands and were putting on an impromptu concert for the others. Clint and Natasha grinned at each other a bit, and decided not to slide down and interrupt. They settled down on the girder, their legs swinging back and forth after a few minutes as the kids transitioned to something that sounded like Beethoven to him even if he couldn't place it. They were actually really good, Clint noted with a mild kind of surprise, and gutsy to go with a lesser known piece. While Natasha would drag him to the ballet every now and then, and he had a healthy appreciation for all kinds of music, he'd never been close to kids so all he knew about school bands and orchestras were from the second hand horror stories that always seemed to float around.
In the few songs that they had listened to so far the kids actually managed a few bars of some sixteenth notes solidly, and while there were some tones that stood out and an off tune chord every now and then, it wasn't half bad.
When they started on a waltz, Clint felt Natasha poke him in the side. He turned to her and raised an eyebrow. She tilted her head in that way that was just daring him, and Clint couldn't quite figure out what she was daring him to do.
She promptly poked him again, this time narrowing her eyes and Clint blinked. She couldn't actually mean….
She moved to poke him again and he jumped to his feet to avoid her with a scowl. Nat just smirked and held up her hands. Clint blinked again. That Natasha was willing to…
Without missing another beat, Clint leaned down and offered his hand, pulling Natasha into his arms. They waited for a moment, quiet and still as they anticipated where the notes would go.
On queue, they started to dance.
Adapting their footwork so that they didn't fall off the beams they were balancing on was actually kind of fun, and by the time the last arpeggio trilled through the air, they were both grinning like loons.
When the next song, Stars and Stripes Forever, started up, Natasha nodded at him and they kicked it up a notch, moving together as always. Clint even felt secure enough in their modified footwork to risk a spin or two, and Natasha actually laughed, making him grin even wider.
Suddenly there were shouts from below, and Clint glanced down to see one of the civilians pointing at them in awe. The showman in Clint couldn't help but raise his own eyebrow in a dare to Natasha who met it with a wild grin. He spun her with even more flourish than before, adding a leap that split them onto separate beams only for the music to stutter as the kids in the orchestra gaped a little. They both shot mild glares down, and the Conductor quickly rallied the teens though their stumbles with a bright grin on her face, and Clint and Natasha gave them a show in reward.
Spins and whirls, a lift or two, and some really, really impressive footwork.
They finished the song with a massive dip, and then when the kids moved into a swing, Natasha laughed as Clint didn't bother to bring her to start position before he threw her in the air with abandon. The normal swing lifts and other aerials, normally pretty impressive already, were made even more breath taking by the height they were at. Given that there were also essentially holes in their floor, they were able to overextend a few moves that they normally wouldn't because it would make one of them crash into the floor, which made things even more showy. They ended it on a candlestick into a toss into a backflip for each of them, and they stuck the landings onto the beam, Natasha with a self satisfied smirk, and Clint with a ringmaster bow.
There was massive cheering from below, and the Conductor shouted up at them. "Have any requests?" Natasha shrugged at him, so Clint grinned and waved down in an 'up to you' gesture with another bow. The woman laughed, yelling up to them, "you asked for it!"
She said something quickly to the teens and they quickly shuffled their papers on their makeshift stands, and then the first strains of the Chinese Dance from the Nutcracker rang up. Natasha just raised an eyebrow up and moved to a pretty good approximation of en pointe considering she was in combat boots. Clint sighed before sliding over to basically support her and perform the lifts she wanted, since he was crap at ballet.
Still, he could fake it since really almost every part for guys consisted of just lifts anyway.
Nat got into it however, and he basically watched her in awe before they finally ended in a simple Grand Plie into a bow to cheering from below.
The Conductor called out, "try this on for size!" and Clint listened to the first few beats before grinning. Wild Thing. He'd never heard this by a band or orchestra before, but the kids were moving into this one with a really solid level of self assurance, a good chunk not even looking at their sheet music, which meant that they had to be exceedingly comfortable playing it.
Clint and Natasha could so breakdance to this.
So they did.
Doing any of the spins, head, gremlin, elbow, up on the relatively narrow beams was a bit tricky, but Clint had years of giving gravity the middle finger to help out. The air flares and monkey flips were a blast however, though he wasn't sure Natasha agreed. Still since she had passed on the head spin, she had to deal with pulling a few of his stunts with him.
They finished up with freezing in some arches, resting their feet together in the air. Before they could even flip up to stand the conductor quickly started her charges on a jazz piece. Clint didn't recognize it, and a glance at Natasha had her indicating she didn't either, but the beat was similar enough to In The Mood that they silently agreed on adapting their routine for that. Sure enough they pulled it off, even if their steps weren't perfectly to the music like they would be if they knew the song.
After that it was fast paced Salsa, and the two of them laughed wildly as they immediately slid into a Sombrero and started to move, Natasha throwing an extra swing into her hips.
After the salsa, the conductor grinned maniacally and waved the kids into the next song, which after a few beats Clint recognized and scowled. He glanced at Natasha who raised an eyebrow and they had a quick silent discussion before bowing down in defeat. They could dance the Gangnam Style thing, and had on three occasions that had been fueled by too much booze and dares by Wade, but if they did it here, they just knew that Tony would find out and never let them live it down.
And then they might have to explain the dance to Thor.
The kids in the orchestra stopped playing to cheer wildly, and Clint and Natasha both raised from their bows to clap for them. They honestly hadn't had that much fun in a while. The additional cheering reminded Clint of the other civilians, and Clint almost scowled as he remembered that they had… yup. Cameras. That were most likely uploading this to the web right now.
Rather than scowl though, he kept a smile on his face and played to the crowd with Natasha.
He just knew that the PR folks would be absolutely thrilled at this, and didn't want to do anything that would get them pissy at him again. It had taken them months to stop being mad at him for the purple elephants and they still wouldn't let him anywhere near oranges in public.
A few of the civilians were calling for an encore, and the conductor turned to the kids and asked something, getting cheers in return. She looked up at them with a questioning look, and after glancing at each other, Clint and Natasha shrugged. The Conductor turned to the kids again, and they quickly started a piece. It honestly started out so suddenly, and unexpectedly that it took Clint a second to place it. Oh, man… this one needed vocals too. Well, okay it didn't need need vocals, but it was almost a crime to not have the lyrics when it came to Metallica's No Leaf Clover. (And no, Clint was not going to mention the rather unhealthy obsession he had had with the S & M album when it came out…. Nope.)
He glanced at Nat who just rolled her eyes in acceptance, and with a grin at just the right place, Clint started singing.
He knew he didn't have the best voice, but it was pretty solid, and he wouldn't make someone grab their ears and cringe unless he wanted to. Natasha pulled him into a relatively slow freestyle as he held out the notes, before joining in on the chorus herself, and they had fun just twirling for a bit for the bridge before they began a series of quick change ups and finally ended with one last deep dip on the last slowly fading strains.
After smiling at each other for a few moments, they turned and bowed to the crowd, who cheered even louder. The two of them both bowed again, this time arms out towards the orchestra and the cheering got even louder. The Conductor was grinning madly as she waved for her kids to take their bows. The kids were all bright smiles and blushes as they took their bows, and Clint grinned himself.
After a few minutes, Natasha finally slid down the ropes, deftly handling the civilians even as she caught the water packs that Clint secured to the ropes with clamps and slid down. After they were all down, he slid down himself to help out. They ended up taking a few more pictures and signing instruments for the kids who looked like Christmas had come a month early.
It only got better for them when Tony and Rhodey landed with a few of Tony's extra Jarvis controlled suits, since the air had finally stabilized enough for them to fly through even if it couldn't support a quinjet or helicopter yet, so they got to be airlifted out by superhero. The kids all volunteered to be carried out last and somehow they produced an extra guitar and keyboard for Clint and Natasha when they mentioned that they played a little. Given they had managed to hang onto not only their instruments but their spares as well, Clint thought they were doubly awesome since there were more than a few baby agents that managed to lose weapons in smaller dust ups than what these kids had gone through.
There was more music after this, and sure enough from Tony's cooing through their comms, it was fairly obvious that they would undoubtedly be having to deal with this for ages.
XxXxX
Felicia Bishop smiled as she ran the kids through their warm ups. Ever since the videos of Hawkeye and Black Widow dancing to their music had gone viral (the most popular one was called "Avengers defeated by Gangnam Style"), their orchestra had had a huge surge of popularity in the school and their city, with donations pouring in to support it.
Heck, their Christmas Concert had sold out through pre-sales, which was really unheard of. They'd ended up needing to do a second night just so all the kids parents could see their kids play, and then that one had sold out too. If this kept up for even two more concerts they'd be completely funded for the next year, and that wasn't even counting what they were getting from the concession sales. They had just finished the last scale when the Principal rushed in wide eyed and leaned in to whisper to her as much as the acoustics in the room let him. "The Avengers are all here, with various dates and other people, and apparently a few of the other tickets were for the mayor and a few other politicians. There is press outside, we've let a few of them set up in the back of the auditorium."
She blinked.
"We get to play for the Avengers again? Cool!" Cory, her first flute practically shouted, and sure enough all of her kids broke into excited chatter. There wasn't a single nervous glance, or apprehensive question at there apparently being more cameras than their parents.
Felicia grinned. She loved these kids. She quickly waved the Principal away and tried, in vain most likely, to try and stop her them from plotting to heckle the Avengers into getting on stage with them and singing along to a few of the numbers.